14 April 2009

Spraying the urban forest?

| kevn
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Apologies for the lack of pics. Some months ago, I noticed the fences facing Sulwood Drive along the bottom of Mount Taylor in Kambah looked different – someone had spraypainted palms and trees on the mostly colorbond fences.

Since then its spread to Lyons and Mawson areas as well. At first I thought this was an urban terrorist of some kind, making graffiti nice and all that, but I’ve begun to wonder:

  • The cost of paint would be adding up.
  • If working under the cover of darkness, it would be hard to maintain such consistent patterns without a stencil.
  • Any stencil used would be cumbersome and awkward for any sneaky arts kid.
  • Every now and then it skips a fence, perhaps suggesting an ‘opt-in’ by the owners.

With all this, it occured to me that maybe its a government thing. It looks great either way, but keen to find out more…

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The repeating stencil is -really- ugly, its hard to say the anti-tagging measure (painted tree pattern) was any better than what it was trying to prevent.
Anybody know how much this cost the ACT Taxpayers?

Someone has really gone to town on the fences along Athlon Drive already, and having this repeating pattern _which is in the highest-visibility part of the colour spectrum_ as a background just makes the tagging -really- visible.
Thankyou for thinking this through so thouroughly TAMS.

I will give TAMS (or anyone who owns a large wall) this advice for free:
Purchase a series of standard colors of cheap paints. Tans, browns, whites, greens and grays, dark blues (all natural colors)
When a wall or public structure is tagged, paint a patchwork design on the entire wall.
Kind of abstract designs with basic shapes of natural colors but not very detailed and not too loud or distracting.
This type of design would be easy for almost anyone to paint since there is not really any precise format or pattern to follow and it would be natural color schemes that would blend into the environment.
If the wall gets tagged, covering the vandalism would be easy because there is already a patchwork effect on the wall.
You would never know the graffiti had ever been there because it would be covered with one of the several colors already in the patchwork.

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy10:03 am 15 Apr 09

yeah i thought that too, taggers tend to leave professional work alone. I have a friend who has a colourbond fence in chisholm that it constantly tagged, perhaps she should ask them to do a nice picture or something!

The best way to deal with taggers is to grind them into red sludge and use it to fertilise your veggie garden. At least then they will be useful.

I hate tagging. It has to be one of the stupidest things in existence. Scribble some shite no-one understands to make something look messy.

someone has gone over the ones on Atthlon Drive already… good to see!

Felix the Cat said :

There’s an artist guy (can’t recall his name) that does this sort of thing and he has an exhibition in Gundaroo at the moment (a couple of doors up from the Cork St Cafe). If it’s the same guy then the artwork is pretty average, looks ok from 50ft but up close it’s a bit rough.

It’s a fence, I don’t think it’s supposed to be a Da Vinci masterpiece.. it does look decent from 20m away while I drive past though. I guess we will have to see whether it is effective or not, though the fences I’ve seen it on surpisingly didn’t have a much of a graffiti problem.

Felix the Cat9:19 pm 14 Apr 09

There’s an artist guy (can’t recall his name) that does this sort of thing and he has an exhibition in Gundaroo at the moment (a couple of doors up from the Cork St Cafe). If it’s the same guy then the artwork is pretty average, looks ok from 50ft but up close it’s a bit rough.

Deckard said :

I saw a guy in his early 20’s doing the fence along the bike path in Florey.

I’ve noticed that not all fences have been done and that there are sometimes gaps. Does this mean that they ask for permission? Has anyone here had it done to their fence?

Yeah I saw someone along the lines of this description doing this in West Belco during the day on a Saturday a month back with a fairly new ute and trailer; alluding this is professionaly done.

I saw a guy in his early 20’s doing the fence along the bike path in Florey.

I’ve noticed that not all fences have been done and that there are sometimes gaps. Does this mean that they ask for permission? Has anyone here had it done to their fence?

How about some pictures of native fauna too, just so we can remember what was lost to the urban sprawl. Although…palm trees? Are there any native to the area?

I hope they’re better than the appalling naif daubs on the fence near the Dickson pool.

I think that they work pretty well on the older wooden fences, especially where there is a certain amount of screening plants in front of them.

I wouldn’t be putting it on a nice new colourbond fence though, unless it had already been tagged to high heaven.

Seconding MrMagoo. I’ve only seen the ones in west belco, but I think they look pretty ridiculous.

If it is a professional job, we all have to keep an eye out for Steve Pratt. I
I think that they look quite good as they kinda blend in with the other foliage.

My better half noticed it on Saturday heading out to Parkwood and she mentioned it yesterday. Said it looked really tacky and poorly done. Spend big money on a colourbond fence to have trees painted on it seems like a bad idea to me.

I feel it looks boring as hell, there were some interesting pieces underneath that new ‘artwork’ and now it’s all the same – very bland.

Hopefully somebody uses those trees for a background to do something decent though.

Looks good along Hindmarsh Drive.

grunge_hippy10:02 am 14 Apr 09

yeah i thought that too, taggers tend to leave professional work alone. I have a friend who has a colourbond fence in chisholm that it constantly tagged, perhaps she should ask them to do a nice picture or something!

I to have assumed that it is an anti Graffiti measure. I have been watching (the west Belco version) with interest to see if it is effective. Short term it appears to work.

I am also very curious to know who is doing it, and if it is funded by someone, or paid for by the fence owner.

I had assumed it was an anti-grafitti thing…
Its all along Athlon Drive in Torrens\Pearce.

There’s a heap of fences in west Belco (I noticed when going through there the other day) like this too. Whoever did it, they look pretty good.

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