MentalPolyphonics
You ain't gotta be in jail to be doin' time.
March 17, 2008 at 12:05 am
I attended a talk this weekend by a visual artist named Jennifer Rae Forsyth as part of UVic’s Talking Out the Trash conference. She made a long digression into some philosophy I wasn’t familiar with, so this is kind of a guess at what she was talking about:
Premodern architecture and industrial design is marked by ornamentation. The classic example is columns on building fronts. Modern architecture and design is minimalist, often leaving flat expanses of material or negative space in between material. The designer intended these spaces remain blank and they create the modern aesthetic. What happens particularly in urban environments is both intentional and unintentional rejection of these modernist designs.
Blank spaces are appropriated by graffiti. Graffiti can be done on ornamented surfaces, but the illegibility makes it much closer to vandalism than graffiti on blank walls, which support tags and stencils. For example, Royal Mail letterboxes are premodern, and a sample of their graffiti on Flickr shows mostly graffiti that directly references their function and shape:
In contrast, modernist Canada Post and US Postal Service mailboxes are blank canvases:
The unintentional rejection comes about because utilitarian objects have modernist designs and the maintenance of those objects is neglected because they are utilitarian, the blank surfaces become adorned only with wear:
Wear is considered beautiful under the aesthetic concepts of patina, which implies non-neglectful wear, and wabi-sabi, which I believe applies to all wear. I believe the wilful appropriation or accidental depositing of cultural markers on these modernist objects transforms them into postmodern objects. The modern aesthetic has been rejected and they can only be considered beautiful on postmodern terms.
Jack
Graffiti is ancient. They did it in Rome blah blah blah. We all know this stuff. But yeah: the act itself is premodern.
Graffiti on modernist spaces could just be a premodern reaction to an artistic form that doesn’t fit in the artists’ world view. I don’t think there’s an intention there (not that you were implying that), except maybe with someone like Banksy.
Nietzsche says the rejection of the Apollonian in favour of the Dionysian is the way, the truth, and the light (paraphrased). Graffiti could be seen as a case of that. It all runs into that idea that philosophy describes the interests of academics and all of the normal people just don’t care.
And the problem with hitting up Canada Post boxes is that them buff them nice an’ regular. Unless, I suppose, they just get rusty… or aren’t in Oak Bay.
Jared
I think a premodern reaction to modernism might actually count as postmodernism, but I’m not sure about that. And come on, there’s always an intention.
Nietzsche held that the highest forms of art combine Apollonian and Dionysian aesthetics, so that would suggest that “defaced” modernist things are win.
Isn’t the impermanence part of the art? I dunno, I was using mailboxes as an example because I knew I could find photos of them. Forsyth had all sorts of example photos in her talk but especially dumpsters (although that might have been a nod to the conference theme).
Don
I’m such a square. I see graffiti as vandalism and my desire to clean it up is only bested by my desire to see the perpetrators sentenced to clean it up as community service.
Yes, I can (and sometimes do) appreciate the artistry of the graffiti itself, just not the fact that it is violation of property rights.
Jack
There seems to be a difference between graffiti and tagging. But that gets into “what is art?” which is more a post than a comment.
There’s not really a rigorous argument to be made in favor graffiti. Cleaning it is 100% tax deductible, I’m sure.
But I suppose the lack of argument for it is part of the point. If you buy the Apollonian (logical/orderly/civic) versus Dionysian (emotional/chaotic/orgiastic) conceptual division then graffiti is squarely Dionysian.
But that divide is no match for consumerism. The main reason to become a graffiti artist now is to develop a brand.
Oh, and like Jared points out: the easiest way to avoid graffiti is to avoid covering buildings in canvas. Look at the floral-print-wall-paper electrical boxes in downtown Victoria. The old ladies are happy and the kids won’t waste their ink on something so low-contrast.
Jack
Or another of my favorite observations: graffiti doesn’t get graffitied over (and when it does you can ignore it).
Hipsters would love to live and/or work in a building that a pro graf artist re-painted, say, once a month. It’s not urban decay: it’s an authentic amenity!
Jared
I think I was against graffiti until I started thinking about it more theoretically.
The subject matter of tagging is very narcissistic, but it’s the context that makes it interesting. Installation art, if you will. The cultural aspect is also interesting, although hard to fully comprehend for someone raised in middle-class suburbs.
But I’m sure it’s also that I worship cities and needed to find ways of reducing the cognitive dissonance from graffiti.
[MPF] MentalPolyphonics.com » Guerrilla Gardening Ideology
on March 25, 2008 at 11:40 am
[...] Plant: flowers. This is based on a standard Romanticism preference for plants over the man-made stuff in cities. This motivation could be related to graffiti and an attempt to wrest control of the urban aesthetic. The problem is that beautification needs to be done with some art to be aesthetically pleasing to the majority and it’s not obvious that guerrillas can outperform city workers with a reasonable beautification program. [...]