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Statistical Analysis of U of Chicago Graffiti

Posted by kdawson on from the off-the-wall dept.

quaith writes "Quinn Dombrowski, a member of the University of Chicago's central IT staff, has been recording the graffiti left in the Joseph Regenstein Library Since September 2007. To date she has photographed and transcribed over 620 pieces of graffiti; over 410 of them are datable to within a week of their creation. She has now published in Inkling Magazine a statistical analysis of the entire graffiti collection covering such subjects as love, hate, despair, sex, anatomy, and temporal fluctuations of each of these. After November, both love and despair graffiti drop off significantly until spring, while sex graffiti reaches its one and only peak in December before declining for the rest of the school year. The story includes links to all of the original graffiti photos, which the researcher has made freely available to use under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license."

6 of 157 comments (clear)

  1. License? by Lorens · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Who is this researcher to relicense their works of art? Just because they can't complain!

    1. Re:License? by totally+bogus+dude · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You can use the same logic to say that having laws against murder and rape is equally futile, because you can't physically prevent people from doing whatever they want to do without massively encroaching on their basic rights. In fact, the final conclusion of such logic is that every single law that exists is pointless because it contravenes the laws of nature, and therefore is unenforceable. Of course every law is about stopping people from doing things they're physically capable of doing. That's kind of the whole point. Why would you make legislation mandating the laws of nature / laws of physics be obeyed?

      This kind of "information is different and therefore laws to control it are stupid" thinking is therefore not in itself a compelling argument for why laws should be changed/scrapped and the idea of "intellectual property" should be completely rethought.

  2. Interesting, but... by uvajed_ekil · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I doubt any widely-relevant conclusions at all can be drawn from this analysis. It is somewhat interesting, but the hundreds of samples (which is not really that many) are probably created by a mere handful of individuals, most all of whom belong to a particular group - male undergraduate students, 18-24, residing in or near a certain Chicago neighborhood. So certainly there is no way to apply any findings to any larger group. A fun exercise for statistics nerds, perhaps, but of little scientific value.

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  3. Re:Window into their heads ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There is no line between vandalism and art, because they're not disjunct. They're orthogonal concepts. Vandalism can be art. But even when it is art, vandalism is still a crime. It boils down to two separate questions: What is art? What is vandalism? All four combinations (art and vandalism, art and not vandalism, not art and not vandalism, vandalism and not art) exist.

  4. Wish I had mod points by ericvids · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This may be the BEST counterargument ever to "all information should be free". Bravo!

    However, while I genuinely want to mod you up, I do believe that CURRENT laws to control information are stupid. Similar to how laws can sometimes be unfairly and maliciously used to allow known murderers to remain innocent and walk freely, many patents and copyrights are unfairly and maliciously used to prevent people from contributing to the greater good of humanity. Patents in particular are a minefield -- something's clearly wrong with a system that encourages trolls to cripple the true innovators.

    Back to the topic, I believe what the researcher did, copyrighting her photographs, is all right, regardless of whether she released it under Creative Commons. I don't believe she was copyrighting the actual message on the graffiti anyway, just the expression of it on photograph. (Of course properly the copyright should be attributed to both HER and whoever made the graffiti, but then I would suppose THAT's public domain since the original author didn't stake a claim to it...)

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  5. art/vandalism not mutually exclusive by k2r · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't agree.
    From a judicial POV some act may be vandalism / destructive act to property without the owner agreeing.
    From an artistic POV the same act may still be art.

    Of course "doing art" so someones property without agreement is a problem.
    However, the "lines" are not so easily spotted: What about chalking on the pavement or laser-projections on a publicly owned building?