Statistical Analysis of U of Chicago Graffiti

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."

Comments

Well Documented

[spiffydudex]

I must say there is a good amount of documentation. Now I know that I am more likely to come across a happy smile face than a sad face.

License?

[Lorens]

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

Re:License?

[Finn61]

Kilroy?

Re:License?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nonono, it is modern art.

You appear to not understand that you've walked into my "Live Art" exhibit which can only be appreciated by those within it. "Dicks and your mom", a minor part of the exhibit, encompasses the oedipal desire inherent in males. The "Call me at 555-5555 for a good time" portion speaks of the hidden desire for pleasure which exists in the male psyche.

My exhibit, "Masculinity" encompasses all those themes and more, speaking largely of the sexual frustrations, desire for intimacy, and lack of release that all men feel. The bathroom is used because it's a place where men can feel comfortable and able to release their frustrations, if only for a moment.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to get to work on "Femininity". No, no, I won't enjoy it. After all this is *art* good sir.

Re:License?

[Hurricane78]

Well, what did you expect, from a mindset is not attached to physical reality?
That it would make any sense at all?

The wall with the graffiti is a physical object.
A paper photo in your hand would be a physical object.

But neither the graffiti itself, nor a photo of it, are physical works.
They are ideas/information. Other rules apply.

“Licensing”/“copyright“ is a concept, based on the misconception that ideas/information would be physical objects, and the false need of some people, to control that information.
Trying to argue with it, using logic, is (because of that false base assumption) by definition impossible.

The real physical rules for information are: If it’s out there, it’s out. Period.
So you either never give it out, and won’t be able to prove that it exists at all. Or you give it out to your chosen group.
Which can for example be people that you trust. Or, as in this case, everybody.
In case you gave it to everybody who wants it... well, you should have thought earlier about that everybody could store and copy it at will. (Just like looking at the physical wall and then telling someone, or drawing it from memory, is storing and copying.)

It does not matter if people want to accept that. Just as it does not matter if people want to accept gravity.
You can try to enforce weird rules of behavior onto people, trough mental tricks of psychology. And it may be easier to do in this case, than it is for gravity. But in the end it’s futile. Because you can’t control the whole world. Even with ACTA.
If nothing else, you will end up banning the ability to look at it, because some people became really good at memorizing and reproducing it later. And everybody who can’t remember it, will by definition not remember that it existed.

Re:License?

[totally bogus dude]

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.

Re:License?

[theheadlessrabbit]

Nonono, it is modern art.

You appear to not understand that you've walked into my "Live Art" exhibit which can only be appreciated by those within it. "Dicks and your mom", a minor part of the exhibit, encompasses the oedipal desire inherent in males. The "Call me at 555-5555 for a good time" portion speaks of the hidden desire for pleasure which exists in the male psyche.

My exhibit, "Masculinity" encompasses all those themes and more, speaking largely of the sexual frustrations, desire for intimacy, and lack of release that all men feel. The bathroom is used because it's a place where men can feel comfortable and able to release their frustrations, if only for a moment.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to get to work on "Femininity". No, no, I won't enjoy it. After all this is *art* good sir.

You could not possibly be more wrong. What you are describing is postmodern art, the antithesis of modern art.

Modern art sought to find universal ideals in form and materials. Eg. Paint is colour on a flat surface, so a modernist painting should emphasize colour and flatness. A painting of landscape, or portrait, etc. is trying to be something other than paint on a surface, modernism saw that as false. Truth to materials was a primary concern.

Abandoning all concern for a skillful execution of final object, and spouting pretentious bullshit descriptions about context and how an object relates to an audience is the domain of postmodernism. another big part of postmodernism was to attempt to just make people think modernism was wrong about everything.

The icing on the wrongness-cake is your final sentence, where you talk about not enjoying it, since it is art. Postmodernism is the first time in art history where humour and a cheeky wit have been acceptable. postmodern artists sometimes do just do it for the lulz.

Re:License?

[Hognoxious]

postmodern artists sometimes do just do it for the lulz.

I bet they don't refuse teh dolRRs, though.

Re:License?

[YourExperiment]

It's okay, this is all a part of the wider Google Graffiti settlement.

Re:License?

[mdwh2]

I saw graffiti on the toilet doors of the Tate Modern - the only way I knew it wasn't meant to be part of the exhibitions is because there wasn't a placard explaining what the graffiti was about.

Some modern art is skillful, interesting and so on. But my general rule is that if you need a placard explaining that it's art and why it's important, it isn't very good art. For example, the exhibit that was nothing more than a standard rectangular mirror hanging on the wall (!) (if she bought that mirror, can they sue her for copyright infringement? Is my bathroom mirror infringing on her copyright?)

I think it'd be funny to just hang up some joke fake placards, next to the graffiti, or next to random doors, bits of rubbish, or other features of the building, and see how long it takes to get noticed... (Indeed, for all I know, that's what someone did with the mirror - I can't really tell.)

Re:License?

[bidule]

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.

No-no-no, no-no-no!

Laws are not there to forbid you, but to protect me. I have the basic right of living, you cannot kill me. The fish does not have that right, so you can kill and eat it. Then it gets more complex as laws become the mirror of society: you cannot hug all the fishes and must share them, so killing is limited. On the other hand, you can share information because it cannot take part in a tragedy of the common.

Well, that's the theory. In practice it's something on which you can go ad absurdum.

Re:License?

[supercrisp]

Your capsule summary is way off. What about Dada? Futurism? Constructivism? Mondrian? Schwitters? None of these people or groups is doing quite what you claim for Modernism, yet they're all Modern. Then you have Postmodern people like Agnes Martin who are doing something like what you claim for the Moderns. The situation is far more complex and interesting than simple parody or a textbook glossary entry makes it appear. If you have time to check them out, Modern, PoMo, and contemporary plastic arts are pretty rewarding. And some of those "pretentious bullshit descriptions" can be pretty interesting and revelatory as well. The line about Modernism and universal ideals is almost fine for a sophomore college class, but it certainly ignores a wide, wide range of artists (and writers), and frankly that notion is highly politicized, emerging from the New Critics, Clement Greenberg, and Hugh Kenner. It's pretty dated.

Window into their heads ...

[Gopal.V]

They're thinking, they're feeling. And they want you to know. That's why they paint it on walls, cliffs and carve it into the school benches. There's this school of thought that believes that it will go away if nobody reads it. But they've really never done something, stood a few feet away and sighed about getting it off your head. Ignoring it and waiting for it to go away is dumb.

Keeping tabs on the expression gives you a much more clear indication of what the pulse of the otherwise silent are thinking. This is a fun experiment because nobody wall painting is doing it because they want to be part of a statistic ... unlike a girl with a clipboard asking questions.

I remember being in a train in melbourne, riding past a few walls full of legal graffiti (union lane?) and wondering what the line between art and vandalism really was.

Re:Window into their heads ...

[chill]

I remember being in a train in melbourne, riding past a few walls full of legal graffiti (union lane?) and wondering what the line between art and vandalism really was.

You can stop wondering. The line is drawn with the permission of the property owner. Vandalism is a crime unrelated to the artistic merit of the work, it has to do with property ownership rights.

From an artistic point of view, it is drawn when the intent is to deface or damage instead of create.

Re:Window into their heads ...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Window into their heads ...

[imakemusic]

Often the line is drawn by the officials whose job it is to remove graffiti. Someone commissioned a graffiti artist to paint a piece on their shop front. The council then removed the piece from his property without his permission or even his knowledge for no real reason other than being over-zealous.

Or there's the Banksy piece that was done in the centre of town which went to a public vote on whether or not to remove it. The city voted to keep it.

Remember - not all graffiti is tagging and vandalism.

Re:Window into their heads ...

[miro2]

Actually, they are orthogonal categories. Some things are art, some are vandalism, some are neither, and some are both.

Blah...

[__aaclcg7560]

When the library at the local community college had a wooden tables in the study area, there was a rich history of graffiti from 20 years of students studying for exams. When they build a new library with modern non-wood tables, the graffiti no longer existed. The florescent pen graffiti on the condom machines in the restrooms was a poor substitute.

Re:Blah...

[MichaelSmith]

When the library at the local community college had a wooden tables in the study area, there was a rich history of graffiti from 20 years of students studying for exams. When they build a new library with modern non-wood tables, the graffiti no longer existed. The florescent pen graffiti on the condom machines in the restrooms was a poor substitute.

Did any of it say "insert baby for refund"?

Some more UChicago graffiti

[Anonymous Coward]

We also have some brilliant graffiti in the grout between the tiles in the downstairs bathroom in the Bartlett dining commons. For example,
"I'm a celebrity, get me grout of here!"
"Commutator subgrout of prime order"
"I'm on the groutside looking in"
"What's this all agrout?"

Re:Some more UChicago graffiti

[Ethanol-fueled]

That's a lot like our library where we have this gem, written in pencil, using different fonts and sizes, on a concrete pillar:

Structural concrete
Structural concrete
Structural concrete
I FUCKING LOVE STRUCTURAL CONCRETE!

I like to think of graffiti as being real-life anonymous troll posts, especially when others cross them out an/or respond to them.

Re:Some more UChicago graffiti

[keytoe]

That's funny - I thought 'grout puns' were somewhat unique to my local pub men's room. Except our graffiti is all literary references:

• Grout Expectations
• The Grouting of the Shrew
• The Grout Gatsby

And no, it's not like we're near the university or anything. It's a pretty low-brow suburban pub in a strip mall, so I was surprised to see graffiti veer in a literary direction.

Interesting, but...

[uvajed_ekil]

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.

Re:Interesting, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Quinn calls it a "pseudo-scientific" analysis on her blog and adds "disclaimers for the pedantic." '
http://www.crescatgraffiti.com/2010/02/02/pseudo-scientific-analysis-of-graffiti-with-disclaimers-for-pedanti/

Interesting

[oljanx]

But a sample of 620 pieces over three years isn't large enough for useful analysis. I'd like to see this concept applied to graffiti large cities. I'm sure there are crews responsible for removing the graffiti that could document it in the process.

Re:Interesting

[jaminJay]

I wonder if the FOIA would include all of the photos snapped along the lines before the scrubbers paint a fresh new "canvas" up... There would be literally decades of data, and I believe they already do analysis such that they can identify any person's style such that, if nabbed for one, you're done for all.

PS: I know this occurs because I was at a freshly tagged station when the poor sod was taking (digital) photos and documenting everything before painting over them in a not-quite-the-same tan. Interest was piqued, questioning ensued.

Wish I had mod points

[ericvids]

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...)

art/vandalism not mutually exclusive

[k2r]

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?

Copyright violation?

[tjstork]

Just wanted to throw out that technically she's violating the copyright of the graffiti owner, and cannot be distributing that work. I think all the graffiti authors should step forward and claim their share of her enormous royalties. If you are a graffiti writer, please click [this is a joke] to claim your giant prize.

Soldier Port-a-John graffiti overseas

[adosch]

I think regardless of where you find it or what type of person are, graffiti is pretty entertaining and intriguing. I think the most amusing graffiti I've seen that encompasses about every walk of life, rank or status and is among the same topic fairing FTFA above was in a Port-a-john during different points in my life, most notably when I was deployed in Iraq. Considering the type of foot traffic that hit these port-a-john's is much more broader than the foot traffic that hits a university library and the fact that, at least when I was in basic training, it was a push-up affair every time you didn't have a black ballpoint pen on your person, the odds were pretty high for someone to carve their opinion in any artistic form into the wall for everyone else to ponder AND respond to.

It's almost a comical affair now to realize I used to go out of my way to keep track of all the "Black Ninja Rule Number n" and actually look for them when I was pouring sweat trying to take a crap or try to unbuckle 50lbs worth of gear and stow it beside me with I pissed in those crackjack boxes.

Re:Banksy

[Omestes]

Can you really "deface" graffiti? Isn't graffiti just defacement (vandalism) itself, so how can one really deface it? If this Banksy person had permission from the property owners, then his piece isn't graffiti. If he didn't secure their permission, then he should be hunted down and thrown in jail.

Don't mean to sound overly troll-ish, but I'm getting sick of people glorifying graffiti.

Not very original

[Locke2005]

Something similar was done almost 30 years ago.

What a waste

[gx5000]

Is this considered trendy ? Of scientific merit ? How much money went into this nonsense ?? We still don't have cures for the worst of our ills but we'll study pot modern cave paintings ?

Re:Dear Quinn Dombrowski...

[O('_')O_Bush]

"while simultaneously wondering why none of them are desperate enough to actually ask you out..."

That's because she's married you fool.

http://www.quinndombrowski.com/

What's really sad is that you took the time to troll this slashdot article without even googling her name.

xkcd?

[Spacepup]

Someone is seriously doing this as research?
It's like XKCD just happened in real life.
.
.
.
Wait.
What?
http://xkcd.com/