viz.

Image Credit: Personal Photograph 

When approaching a situation from a place of unfamiliarity or doubt, long-standing habit takes me to the Oxford English Dictionary. According to this semi-sacred text, graffiti (noun), means “words or images marked (illegally) in a public place, esp. using aerosol paint.” I etched this definition onto a spare wall in my brain and set out, quite purposefully, to find some street art. I knew from casual observation that some fences outside my apartment complex, the bus stations along my street, some building walls and even the backs of some signs sport small splashes of graffiti. All that remained was determining and documenting which offerings qualified as real graffiti (once again, “words or images marked (illegally) in a public place, esp. using aerosol paint”). Simple, right?



Oh, so wrong.

Image Credit: Geoff Hargadon

This week on viz. we'll be exploring graffiti culture in Austin and beyond, beginning with an interactive graffiti map that we'll use to begin archiving graffiti in and around the community in which we live.  Please visit and contribute!

In this post, I'd like to introduce some issues central to reading graffiti as both a performative and political act.  I take as my primary examples the HOPE Outdoor Gallery on 11th St. and Baylor in Austin's Clarksville neighborhood and graffiti from inside a now-demolished bicycle shop that once operated in West Campus.  Using these examples, I'd like to explore definitions of graffiti and raise questions of property and ownership in public spaces.  Join our interactive mapping project and follow our posts this week as we take a closer look at Austin graffiti.

Image Credit: Apres Garde, by way of Google Maps Mania

The above image is the Saturday, November 13th entry from the Tumblr photo blog of local writer Matt Bucher, Apres Garde, where he collects picturesque images from Google Street View. Apres Garde is one of several Google Street View art sites featured on Tuesday by the Google Maps Mania blog along with Montreal-based artist Jon Rafman's 9 Eyes Tumblr which presents a mixture of scenic views and interesting or suggestive situations captured by the Google Street View Camera alongside Lehel Kovács Google Street View inspired cityscapes and Bill Guffrey's Virtual Paintout. All of these blogs use the images captured by Google Maps street view as (or for inspiring) their work. 

While scrolling through HollaBackNYC, a site that allows users to post pictures of those that harass them on the street, I came across two websites that seemed like great visual rhetoric resources. The Just Seeds Visual Resistance Artists' Cooperative offers a blog, resources, as well as information about current projects and artists. The picture below comes from a 2004 project from the Street Art Workers entitled "Whose Media?" You can also find archived material from the group's previous website here.
Just wanted to share!