Reverse Graffiti

glawrie writes "UK Graffiti artist 'Moose' thought he had come up with a perfect socially friendly approach to his art - to trade paints for cleaning fluid. An article in the UK's Independent Newspaper describes how he has created graffiti by taking '... any dirty inner-city wall or pavement, place a template over it, and scrub the concrete clean, revealing an image as sharp as any spray paint which fades with time.' Moose was commissioned by a subsidiary of drinks manufacturer Diageo to create some 'clean' graffiti in Leeds to promote their vodka brand Smirnoff to local students. However, this work was subsequently condemned by Gerry Harper, a Leeds councillor, as 'sheer vandalism'. With wonderful irony, the council demanded that the artist 'clean-up' the graffiti that appeared in one of the city's gloomiest underpasses. Maybe all those senseless vandals out there will now think twice in future before scrawling 'Clean Me' on the back of vehicles overdue for a wash... But perhaps the state is now going too far - surely it is only a matter of time before rainfall is similarly targetted by the good guys."

Comments

Smart

[AKAImBatman]

That sounds like a really smart idea. The only problem I can see is that you're limited in choice of color. Many "professional" graffiti artists like to create very colorful works that help "brighten" the area. I still haven't figured out if I *like* professional graffiti, or if it even helps improve the area, but new options for those who do like it are always welcome.

Re:Smart

[L7_]

Not neccesarily.

A lot of people are using templates nowadays to paint thier political picture. Often taking a picture image, cutting out the cardboard and then just spraying the monocolor paint (usually black) over the template and you have your instant message. I would think that it is a lot more up-front work at home, but the application is faster and people generally don't have to spend night after night spraying on a wall for thier message to come across.

Most graffiti that I see nowadays that isn't template based is all gang related (LA based). The only ones trying to convey a political message are those using templates and monotone.

The city was being reasonable, not Smirnoff

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does the article present this as some sort of travesty? It is what it is, and that is unlawful advertising on public space. To get rid of it would require public money to clean the rest of the overpass. It's graffiti, period. Why can't people just leave things alone, is it that hard to resist 'making your mark?'

I mean come on, is this for real? We're supposed to feel sorry for this guy and Smirnoff? Gimme a break, they crossed the line and should be responsible.

Re:The city was being reasonable, not Smirnoff

[RhettLivingston]

No, he didn't clean the wall at all. At least not to me. I'm very familiar with this whole line of thought because my wife and I get into it all the time. The argument results from a fundamental difference in what different people consider "clean" which I think has to do with a fundamental difference in mental processing.

My wife would say that you're right, he cleaned the wall. I'd say you're wrong, he didn't clean it in any way. In fact, he may have made it more dirty. My wife judges "clean" by how much dirt is present or not present. I judge clean by how little the scene departs from a white noise or natural condition. The difference causes a lot of trouble for us both outdoors and indoors. For example, a mowed lawn to me is dirty, especially if the lines are visible. I prefer our grassland to grow wild and random. Natures natural variations add interest without adding dirtiness. She prefers it to be mowed and forced more towards a humanized order. An inside example is figurines and other small knick knack type items. To her, they don't effect cleanliness either way. To me, they add to the scene in an unnatural, complicated, non-white noise fashion that I interpret as dirty or cluttered. It really leaves me mentally spinning and unsettled.

I think my problem is shared by a lot of people and is very hard to express in a fashion that those who don't have it can understand and relate to. And it probably has a basis in fundamental thought processes that make it, not a preference, but a need. I think that what is going on is that I cannot not process certain types of visual information. When a lot of complex non-natural lines and shapes are in a scene, I can easily get overwhelmed and have to shut down to a degree to protect myself. Its a cumulative thing to. i.e. there is some principle of conservation in effect or some limited resource, probably chemical, that is playing a part. For example, I can take a complex scene (complex is the wrong word because a forest wouldn't bother me unless it wasn't random, but the best I can do) for a little while if I've been out on my land for the day.

Anyway, these graffiti artists are adding to the amount of information that people like me can't turn off and have to processed in a scene. So, from our point of view, whether they created lines and shapes by cleaning a surface or adding materials to a surface is irrelevant. The probelm is that they created the lines and shapes and added the complexity to the scene.

how... Bizzare

[Seithon]

It's become a rather sad state of affairs if people are prosecuted for CLEANING the bloody place... On the one hand I can see why a council would be upset about people putting up ad's without a permit, but if I were them I'd be worried that their was wall's so dirty that people could write long lasting (presumably) adverts on them by just cleaning them...

An ad by any other name . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

It's funny, until you realize he's not doing grafitti, he's doing commercials.

So endorse it

[essiescreet]

But perhaps the state is now going too far

So, when I went to ncsu (ncsu.edu), the had the tunnel of free expression (so you could paint whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted), where people could legally paint "graffiti", and it got painted over once a week/month, whatever. Why not provide a productive outlet for prospective artists?

Fill in for lack of sig.

How does one clean up a clean up?

[uberfruk]

do they expect him to splatter mud on the walls, or would they prefer him to grafitti with paints or ????

Graffiti tags

[whereiswaldo]

From the Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003:

Help with identifying 'tags': Tags are the distinctive signatures used by people who cause graffiti. The government has set up 'Operation Scrub-it', a partnership between the British Transport Police, Crimestoppers and transport providers. It aims to create a national database to record graffiti tags that would help prosecute frequent graffiti offenders. The reporting of graffiti is encouraged and there will be rewards for information leading to successful convictions. The public have been invited to help the authorities in identifying these tags and thus in fighting the graffiti problem.

Better add Smirnoff to the list.

This is the best thing since...

[Fooby]

IBM painted those logos all over the place.

Already on TV?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen this exact thing on a TV ad, it shows a man in a subway station holding a mop+bucket, then as a train rushes through this man is rushing about sonic the hedge-hog style, you see the end result with a smooth logo and design on a scrubbed clean train.

Think it may have been for Jiff cleaner or something, or maybe it was hard liquor commercial (we have lots in the UK) I can't really remember... I was pissed at the time.

Political commentary at the Key Bridge in DC

[michaelmalak]

There's a sign on the Virginia side of the Key Bridge that goes into Washington, DC that has become a cultural phenomenon of political commentary. Who knows what the sign was really for -- it probably announced that the bridge was the "Francis Scott Key Bridge" or something. Then after 9-11 it was spray-painted with something patriotic -- a flag I think. Then after people started realizing Bush was just using 9-11 as an excuse to advance an empire and limit civil liberties, the patriotic graffiti was grafitti'd over. IIRC, the oldest one shown at this Georgetown lawyer's website was the first, "Read Orwell". After that, it went back and forth between pro-war and anti-war messages.

Oddly, authorities never cleaned it up. It's like it's become an unofficial but implicitly sanctioned public forum.

Re:Political commentary at the Key Bridge in DC

[torpor]

Since when do you hand over control of a nation when you are advancing an empire?


Since when? I'll tell you.

Since the time when it doesn't take a gov't to run an empire, but a handload full of corporate contracts instead.

Sure, 'statehood' is all that and bag of chicken wings. But 'statehood' ain't nothing when you've got a $5Trillion collection of 'undefeatable' International contracts for various 'key' things, all being run for you by amorphous globalist corporations.

"Handing over a nation" indeed. You think the Iraqi people have had ANYTHING WHATSOEVER to do with selecting Halliburton to 'administer the countries oil assets'?

Graffiti on copper clad buildings using Brasso!

[speleolinux]

When I was a student at Sydney University in the early 80's I belonged to a caving club (SUSS) that used to abseil down the face of the Unis Library during Student Orientation Week. This building was about 9 stories high and clad with copper - very nicely tarnished to an elegant hue. One day, when I was just getting out of my abseling gear at the bottom a guy from 'BUGAUP' (Billboard Utilising Graffitists Against Unhealthy Promotions, very active in the 80's in Australia, they used to write 'BUGGA UP' over walls) approached me with an interesting idea. This guy asked if I could abseil down and use Brasso to graffiti the copper cladding! Geez man, I did want to get a degree. Still it was tempting :-)

Nothing new to Portland, OR

[ISPpfy]

For years kids used soapy water to wash the crud off the walls of the Sunset (Hwy 26) tunnels and express their feelings. One caveat: I haven't gone thorugh the tunnels in question for some time now, so I don't know if it hasn't gotten more destructive or not.

Re:legal grafitti..

[XryanX]

Aye, we have several free walls here in Tallahassee, FL. I have a bunch of friends that paint, and it truly is art.

Unfortunately, most people equate graffiti with silly kids that scrawl basic tags all over the place. If you look at some of the bigger pieces(murals and such), you'll see it for the art that it is.

Vandalism = bad
Painting free walls = good

This happens around here all the time

[fahrvergnugen]

I live in an island community of about 70,000 people, accessible only by bridge & tunnel. The tunnels leading to and from the island are very old, and the white tile that lines them quickly grows covered in grime and soot. Every month or so a truck comes through and sprays everything down, but the dirt always collects again, seemingly thicker than before.

The local grafitti artists & taggers, some of whom I'm assuming come in from Oakland (the other end of the tunnel) have taken to using squeegees and water to make their signs. They just clean their tag into the wall of the tunnel and presto! It's there, reflecting in shiny white the headlights of passing cars, twice as noticeable as another spray tag we're all used to filtering out.

It's one of the reasons I love living here.

Plenty of colors for the dirty deed.

[twitter]

The only problem I can see is that you're limited in choice of color.

Don't you know that the solvent comes with all sorts of tints these days? Citron, and various berry flavor Vodka is available. There's even pepper vodka. It might be more subtle than the average commercial "art" but the obliteration message will still come through.

I still haven't figured out if I *like* professional graffiti, or if it even helps improve the area ...

Could it be more despicable? Nothing says "slum" like billboards and graffiti. Don't be fooled, it's always degrading and insulting when people stick their message in your face. The difference between a "legitimate" billboard and someone marking their pissing grounds is mostly the means available. In this case, the advertiser is being cheap and hoping to gain some kind of hoodlum credibility. I don't want to live or work around people with that kind of attitude.

Re:Plenty of colors for the dirty deed.

[kwan3217]

The difference between a billboard and graffiti is that a billboard has the permission of the owner of the property to exist.

Graffiti with negative paint (cleaning fluid) is still graffiti, is still done without the permission of the property owner, and the doer thereof should still be subject to the legal penalties for trespassing and vandalism.

Re:Plenty of colors for the dirty deed.

[Dimensio]

Graffiti with negative paint (cleaning fluid) is still graffiti, is still done without the permission of the property owner, and the doer thereof should still be subject to the legal penalties for trespassing and vandalism.

I actually have something of a problem with this statement. To me, it's kind of like punishing someone for littering because they cleaned up some of the trash in an area, but not all of it, even though they didn't dump any of the trash in the first place.

not prosecuted for defacement

[PsiPsiStar]

from the article

But Leeds City Council insists his work is illegal because any advertiser needs a permit. The Crown Prosecution Service says he may have been in breach of last year's Anti-Social Behaviour Act.

In short, he isn't being targeted for 'defacement' but for using a public space for commercial ends.

Similarly, if I go downtown and try to sell things on the street, even if I cause no disturbance whatsoever, I can still be held accountable for performing a commercial act in a space that I'm not allowed to do so.

It's a shitty kind of law that needlessly restricts freedom. I'd love to have more street vendors selling without the high overhead that the local shops do, provided that they're not too obnoxious. But the local gov was following the law, however stupid that law was. Maybe he could get a liscense to advertise?

Re:Depends on the kind of graffiti

[ashesblow]

I've been graffing (its an industry term) for the last 5 years. I never leave my name, so its not really a tag. However I feel that using a designated wall is useless. The point of Graffing to me, at least, is to subject (as infringe on others) the unwary to art. Putting a 3 foot Venus DeMilo on a wall in a grubby factory is a much more fufilling act than putting that same stencil on a wall thats designated for art. Two distinct demographics really.

Re:Stuff that matters?

[cyclobotomy]

I thought it had something to do with "exploiting the system" of laws prohibiting grafitti, and was thus a form of hacking.

Re:legal grafitti..

[LighthouseJ]

Down here in Richmond Virginia, there is a coffee shop owner that has a wall facing a major intersection in Richmond. Seeing as how art is rather popular here (VCU being *the* art school around, with art galleries and museums too), grafitti and art in general is all around. It's on buildings, box cars, people draw it on drawing pads, whatever. Anywho, the shop owner got in touch with some artists and got an agreement that the artists can write over the whole wall, preferably more at the top where it's more visible for free if they keep their personal tag visible but not obtrusive. It's good to find out about people embracing a part of the culture like that.

Re:For me, Grafitti is to Art...

[The_dev0]

I agree completely. I'm 28 years old, and have been painting since I was 11 in Brisbane, Australia (pretty much my entire life). My memories of my teenage years are mostly of running from the cops, jumping trains and sneaking around with a bag full of cans. As my crew and I have got older, we've noticed that police/government are starting to realise that outdated graffiti control methods are not working to minimise damage done to public property, and the shift by Local Governments is now to provide exactly this type of outlet to it's youth. In fact our crew has paved the way for the local kids in our area by getting together with Local Government and working out solutions that should make both parties happy, ie;

Giving the kids somewhere to put up, thereby lessening the amount of shitty tagging around the area

By providing workshops for the local youth to learn about and become a part of the four elements, (Graffiti, DJ'ing, Breakdancing, MC'ing), which then breeds respect for the culture and an affinity for your local area and crews.

It's been a pretty big success with the locals and the youth, every workshop we run is booked out almost straight away, and with local government helping with financial aid, we can offer these workshops for free.

And who knows, a grafitti artist may even become a productive and creative member of society, instead of a drone who got busted for tagging once too often.

We recently had an auction of artwork painted in the workshops over the last year and raised quite a lot of money, of which half we are using to plan more workshops, and the remainder we donated to a local charity dealing with drug affected teenagers. I think thats a pretty sweet contribution by a bunch of degenerate vandals :) I did like your joke, though. I'm currently employed full time in IT for the government, and it's an odd feeling to leave a managers meeting, go home, throw on your black hoodie and hit the streets for a couple of hours. If only my boss had any idea what I got up to...

P.S. If anyone has any qustions regarding the programs I'm more than happy to provide you with any info you like, just email me at the above or reply here.

reverse graffiti but not as advertising

[RalfM]

See also this campaign to highlight smog and pollution effects, where messages were made by cleaning dirty (not graffitied, just plain old dirty) walls around London.

Re:Depends on the kind of graffiti

[Cederic]

Actually, I rate top-quality graffiti as better art than you'll often find in galleries.

Take Banksy (check the website at http://www.banksy.co.uk/ ) - total vandalistic anti-socialism but at the same time valid social commentary, truely genius artistic vision and inspired execution.

~Cederic is a fan.

UK graffiti

[Zog The Undeniable]

One of the most notorious examples was "It's Grim Up North" sprayed on most of the M1 motorway bridges so it could be seen by northbound traffic. Questions in the Houses of Parliament and talk of a North-South economic divide (as if they hadn't realised).

It was actually thought to have been a publicity stunt by sometime dance artists The KLF - the same guys that set fire to 1 million UKP on a Scottish island, because they could afford to.

Re:Depends on the kind of graffiti

[Anonymous Coward]

If someone were to deface your website, would you leave it up, even if you didn't like the 'art' of the defacement?

Re:Depends on the kind of graffiti

[legoburner]

They did that here in the UK in my town. The next step was to get all the schools to give the police photocopies of every single schoolbook that has got any sort of doodles on it. Lo and behold, almost every kid under 18 who had done grafitti had tagged all their schoolbooks and the police were able to tie most tags down to kids by name, and either give them warnings or punishments. The best bit was most actually stopped and grafitti dropped by at least 70%

Re:Depends on the kind of graffiti

[pubjames]

Damnit he's even got a photograph of it on his web site:

http://www.banksy.co.uk/outdoors/vandalism.html

Note that the photo only shows a small part of this act of vandalism - the whole of the front of a building was vandalised.

The building was recently cleaned, and the council has put iron railings in front of it to prevent further acts of vandalism like this. Well done Banksy! You're so clever!

Wanker.

Re:legal grafitti..

[egreB]

In fact, there was a story (never mind the text, it's in Norwegian - look at the picture) about this in our local newspaper this morning. A local landlord in the middle of the city hired a couple of graffers, as it's called in Norway, to paint the house. Started a rather heated debate here. This is his own property, but the city administration is discussing wether to enforce a repaint. There's a law somewhere that says that a given city's administration has the responsebility to keep the city look somewhat good. An interview with someone ine the city council revealed that some of its members didn't like the view..
So it's not just about property - it's about the general visual representation of the city. Me, I love it. It looks great! More graffiti!

You're not allowed to touch council property

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't read the entire thread, so I don't know if it's been mentioned already, but a good friend of mine was annoyed at some unsightly graffiti near his home so called the council to ask about having it removed. Not top priority for the council, so he offered to remove it himself. He was told if he removed the graffiti himself he would be prosecuted for criminal damage to council property!

Re:Depends on the kind of graffiti

[Halo-]

Well, I agree with you in a utopian way, but not ultimately in practice. I think most billboard companies (e.g. ClearChannel, Reagan, etc...) are scum, but I have trouble encouraging destruction of someone else's paid property. Defacing a billboard often destroys the original "value".

As ugly, and often offensive as billboards are, the simple fact is that someone paid for their message. If your favorite charity or local business spend a few thousand on a billboard and it got defaced, it would be a blow because the entity lost money. Just because the billboard happens to be for Viagra (or some other massively corporate thing), doesn't really change things. It's sorta like saying it's okay to shoplift from WalMart because it's not hurting anyone.

The only time I agree with defacing signs is those hidious illegal signs which spring up on telephone polls and at intersections lately. ("Need Money Quick? Call 555-1212", "LA Weight Loss, Call 555-1212", and my favorite "Want signs like these? Call 555-1212") These signs aren't legal, and I think are fair game for whatever...

pressure washers

[Perianwyr Stormcrow]

I remember writing all kinds of great stuff on concrete with a cheap pressure washer when I was a kid. It didn't fade for weeks either, and that was just water out of a hose.

And this highway LED sign is real too

[michaelmalak]

Operation TIPS alive and well in Virginia

Re:A troll! ... I'll bite too!!!

[Neph]

Fortunately, we fundamental christian fanatics do not live by the old testament. We live by the new testament. You know, the part where God sends his son to earth to die for the foriveness of sins... At that point in history (yes, Jesus' existance is a historically verified fact) a relationship with God became available to everyone.

As a curious onlooker (agnostic) may I ask the following: If he's supposed to be perfect, why would God change his covenant with humanity? Shouldn't he have gotten it right the first time? And if different times call for different rules, how do you know the rules in 2004 are still the same? How do you know you haven't missed a messiah? Like maybe the muslims have it right and Mohammed was a prophet of God? For that matter, maybe there've been a dozen since then.

Genuinely curious, I'm not trolling...

Re:A troll! ... I'll bite too!!!

[Vaughn Anderson]

If he's supposed to be perfect, why would God change his covenant with humanity?

He didn't, he fulfilled the requirements of the "Old Testament Law" by a permanent sacrifice, Jesus, instead of periodic animal sacrifices.(God required death for any sin) The covenant, or agreement, God made with his people was about loving eachother and obeying God. God predicted a time in the Old Testament where one day he would "write the law on our hearts". And that you would no longer go to a temple or need a physical priest to worship God, but could personally "boldly approach the throne of God."

That time came when Christ fulfilled the sacrifice that is made every year at Passover, that the "second death may not have power over you." (eternal death). As Christ sacrificed himself as the passover lamb of the old testament, and now is our high priest (which used to be a man) and stands at the right hand of God, and pleads with God on our behalf. All of which used to be done physically.

There was no "new testament" when Christ was teaching, Christ taught that the "laws and the prophets" were enough for salvation, as they taught of a road to repentance of sins. Also note, Christ _never_ did away with God's laws, only the laws of men (mainly the Pharisees). He didn't say it's ok to commit adultry, in fact he said the opposite, he said "if you even look on a woman to lust after her you have committed adultry in your heart."

Believe it or not, loving God and God loving us back is an _Old Testament_ idea, that was simply reiterated by Jesus, _not_ started by him.

Leviticus 19:34, Deuteronomy 6:5, 7:9, 10:12, 11:1,11:13, Joshua 22:5, 23:11, 1 Kings 10:9

How did God say we should live in the Old Testament? Was it "do as I say" or fire and brimstone?

Micah 6:8
He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?

Was God a cruel master in the Old Testament like many would love to claim? One way to examine this is to see what his laws were for. Read Leviticus, it says all kinds of wonderful things that you should do for other people, also what your punishments will be for doing wrong (this is where people tend to say God was cruel), but what most people don't see in the Bible is that God created life for a purpose, and part of that is to have a people that "love God and love their neighbors" If God said what a punishment was, why didn't he _always_ exact punishment on people?

Read the account of David taking Bathsheba to be his wife and killing her husband, what was David's own judgement against himself?

2 Samuel 12: 5 Then David's anger burned greatly against the man, and he said to Nathan, "As the LORD lives, surely the man who has done this deserves to die."

Now if you believe that the Old Testament God was a harsh, uncaring, uncompassionate, unforgiving God, then surely David should have been struck dead right then and there. But this did not happen, as when David was finally faced with his sin, he repented. Repentance is claimed also as only a "New Testament" concept, which is also a general untruth that is popular.

So who was the God of the Old Testament? Jesus claimed he was the God of the Old Testament. Prove this to yourself, it gives the Bible a whole new meaning. Here Christ makes this claim.

John 8: 58
Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am."

The term "I am" is the same word the Jews used for the God of the Old Testament, that is why they immediately picked up stones to through at him.

And if different times call for different rules, how do you know the rules in 2004 are still the same?

You really do have to read the whole Bible to understand, or at least a good portion of it. The _only_ "rules" God changed after Christ came is the sacrificial law, because Christ fulfilled the need to shed blood for your sins, as Christ did thi