25 February 2007

Graffiti watch - All the arms we need

| johnboy
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As seen in an inner-north stormwater drain:

Well I thought it was kind of cute.

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Rape isn’t funny.

Get stuffed rapehammer. Most cunning use of the letter R in English history.

and there ya go – it did not work…

a link to the same is

Not having much luck with links today either so if this bombs I am sorry.

Legal Location – Painted over 2 days in canberra.

Had quite a few people stop and say that it was good to see someone making the walls colorful.
Plenty of people drove past and beeped and waved – just as many drove past and shook their heads.

1st time embedding a youtube clip so apologies if it does not work.

i think the term is ‘defaced’ or you could use ‘damaged’ or ‘vandalised’.

“Graffiti’d”? Worst use of an apostrophe in the history of the English language. Ever.

Mael,

the way things are going you and I might have to start seriously thinking about a great wall of west belco mate.

You sheep squaddies really are getting defensive.

I see no need to go live in a gated retirement village – although I’m sure I could find you one that has been graffiti’d.

Do the crime, do the time.

baa baa follow what you think is pop-culture spoonhead. You wouldn’t know pop-culture if it bit you and gave you pop-culture rabies mofo.

Jellydick

West_kambah, I sort of can understand what it is that you are saying. However, Canberra is not a concrete monolith like NYC, Barcelona and London. We have had parkland incorporated in the design of this city so that it would not be seen as said concrete ghetto-whatever.

Secondly, many of these graffiti ‘artists’ from the major metro areas on Earth have now made a successful transition into being seen as artists in their right. This happens here, so why can’t those choose to express themselves via this art form, do it in a legal way by either getting permission to paint whtever they wish, the same that any other artist would in order to get an installation commisioned in this city?

oh yeah, squid fingers.

West_Kambah_4eva1:24 pm 27 Feb 07

I win.

the defence rests

West_Kambah_4eva12:55 pm 27 Feb 07

Softhead? That doesn’t even make sense. But if you insist on starting a ‘shittest random insult competition’, then you can be…Wadface, or Dingletits. Yes, that’ll do.

I don’t have to justify any urges. I’m trying to enlighten your perspective, add a little intelligent discourse. But hey, lets just make up insults from two random words. Doodlepants! Ferretnose! errr…Arse… um… butt. Wooo! Yeah. Wooo. Fun.

Softhead. Heh heh…

west kambah 4 eva you talk shite.

ride the train in melbourne and see all the defaced factory walls etc.

unless there has been a massive expansion of govt owned manufacturing, i would say the majority of premises being maliciously damaged are privately owned.

but keep trying to justify your criminal urges.

softhead

every opinion on RiotACT is a minority opinion.

My opinion seems to be a minority one in this forum, so I can’t see how that makes me a sheep. If I was a sheep, however, I would come around to your house in the middle of the night, Maelinar, and bite you. Then you would get sheep rabies. Yeah.

West_Kambah_4eva9:03 am 27 Feb 07

baa baa apehammer baa baah baa

Comment by Maelinar — 27 February, 2007 @ 8:09 am

Please go live in a gated retirement community, you have no place in an actual city. Canberra’s a poor sort of place for graffiti and other type of real city experiences, it teeters on the edge of having a little bit which is enough to have nannas whinge, but not quite enough to give a normal city experience. However if you ever leave your suburb to visit a big city in Australia or overseas you’ll soon realise that illegal graffiti is a primary carrier of the character, emotion and feeling of a city through the material confines that surround inhabitants into their everyday cultural experience. Without graffiti, which has been a common city feature since cities were first built, there is a lack of vibrancy and a lack of trancendental social participation. That is, a property may be private, but the city and the physical and mental space it occupies in the lives of the people that live there is a commons.

Its quite different in other cities as Canberra is basically a suburb of detached houses – pretty much nothing else here. Graffiti in Canberra is hence seen more often as personally offensive to property, as the property is assumed, more often, to be someone’s personal property. It is ‘personal property’ or the individual being affected by ‘the city’ i.e. graffiti scallywags. Graffiti in a big city has the opposite. Because most big city environments are all-encapsulating non-personal property such as roadworks, bridges, monolithic buildings and structures (in comparison to Canberra), it is the individual affecting the city. It is the individuals attempt to create some influence and communicate some information in a wholly impersonal and alienating environment.

bah – buggered the tag – JB – can you give us an edit button please.

I believe this debate’s already been well and truly had – http://the-riotact.com/?p=4067.

and once again Here

Ill post something up when I get home – i do not want to you tube it @ work.

Bonfire is going to love it.

baa baa apehammer baa baah baa

“It’s good to break the law a little from time to time, as long as nobody gets hurt. It gives the police something to do.”

What it does is deprive people of the Police who actually need them. Immature

“It’s good to break the law a little from time to time, as long as nobody gets hurt.”
Tell that to my 86yo Grandmother who cleans the grafitti off her garage wall weekly.
We have told her to leave it there, however she wont.
Its not a victimless crime apehammer. Its about time appropriate penalties were put in place.

smiling politely7:23 pm 26 Feb 07

I believe this debate’s already been well and truly had – http://the-riotact.com/?p=4067.

Putting aside any issues about its illegality, I think it’s a great little piece. I was going to send on some of the better examples from the stormwater drains in Woden when “P is for Palmer, Pearce and Phillip” etc.

I’m supportive of these spaces being used (safely) for art of this kind.

Big white house, Adelaide Avenue, Deakin. No, seriously, if some little punk tried to tag my house I’d be mad. Who wouldn’t? But a nice little mural in a stormwater drain is fine with me. Oh, it’s “you’re” not “your”. Now get back to work and stop wasting my taxpayer dollars.

youre right apehammer. post your address and i’ll come around and put some graffiti on your walls.

thats ok isnt it ?

Oh yeah, I believe “cliche spouting” should be hyphenated, Little Bon Bon

“Still a criminal act” – true. So is smoking the occasional spliff or driving at 105kmh or fighting the bloke that grabbed your girlfriend’s boob in the pub or a million other things in this world. It’s good to break the law a little from time to time, as long as nobody gets hurt. It gives the police something to do. Bonfire, were you ever a Boy Scout?

still a criminal act.

I didn’t realise many people lived in a storm-water drains bonfire, and if they did they probably have no ownership over said drain. I think you’d generally find most graffiti with a political slant is put on public walls and property rather than private. I’m not condoning it, but it’s somewhat intuitive to make a statement against the establishment through their property.

perhaps i can come around to your home and spray paint some oh, lets say neo-nazi white supremacist graffiti on your front fence, i mean you regard it as a legitimate ‘right’ for me to be able to do this.

whats your address ?

(im not a neo-nazi white supremacist, just making a point)

thank you aidan bruford.

neanderthalsis4:04 pm 26 Feb 07

IS graffiti still graffiti when it carries a political message?

I agree that graffiti is a blight on the landscape and the taggers should be publically pilloried. But political comment, albeit anonymous, is a legitimate right.

True, it is a bit of a “oh, I’m so left-wing, I read Adbusters, I never wear Nike, property is theft etc” cliche, but I honestly believe it. I actually enjoy looking at good grafitti, and I’m not sure that it’s possible to deface a stormwater drain. And you can’t deny that, even in the ACT, you have bucketloads of crap forced into your brain everyday – we hardly notice it anymore. Anyway, that’s what I reckon.
Lot’s of love
The Walking Cliche

apehammer the amount of public advertising in the act is so minimal, that your defence of graffiti merely shows you to be a cliche spouting fool.

i heard rumours back in the day that graff artists used to work on the clean-up crews. a few well placed phonecalls after a scrub and that freshly cleaned cement is all nice and pretty again..

VYBerlinaV8 now_with_added grunt1:39 pm 26 Feb 07

Tags are for dirty street scum. Punish them by lighting their aerosols and burning them alive.

Sure, tagged-up building look pretty ghetto, but how can anyone have a serious problem with somebody taking the time to paint such a nice piece in a storm drain. Everyday we’re forced to look at advertising in public spaces (bus stops, billboards etc) which, in my worthless opinion, is much worse.

You’ll all be ecstatic to know that of the 15.12.06, the Stanhopeless Govt has advised that they will no longer be sending out the so-called nazi’s to clean any fences that back on to public land, roads, footpaths, parks, absolutely nothing.
Get used to Canberra looking like the ghettos because over the last two weekends at Ngunnawal the parasites have been working overtime and there is graffiti absolutely everywhere. A call to Urban Services was useless as they wanted to know what was public and what was private.

What i’d really love to see is a throwies campaign.

I’d rather see this type of ‘graffiti’, than those f*cking bill-posters that litter the city.

Being a sheep, following the trend by being suckered into thinking that graffiti is cool is also a crime, unfortunately one without punishment however.

Why else would you buy one of those ‘cool’ graffiti inspired shirts, pants, shoes, hats, skateboards, etc ad nauseum.

baa baa

and jaywalking

So is trespassing on construction sites.

Although its a crime, i’d prefer to see this on the street instead of random tags or swearing.

graffiti is crime.

i hope this criminal si caught and sentenced to cleanin up the results of the crime spree.

graffiti criminals lack self control and societal conscience.

Graffiti is still graffiti.

awwww cute doesn’t cut it. Send in the urban services nazi’s.

Don’t be fooled by the ‘trend’ that graffiti is cool. Go watch Nathan Barley.

Lazy link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Barley

For years there was a colourful piece on the Woden drain by pedestrian bridge across from the Hellenic.
It copped one idiots tag. Then they ‘cleaned’ it. Last time I looked it was just ugly tags.

Or possibly I was trying to make things a little bit harder for the urban services nazis who go around obliterating these things.

no its near the bike path next to st josephs primary school in o’connor, johnboy has missed out the remains of a burnt out car which sit just near by!

I like that… subtle and witty. Taken somewhere round Haig Park? > that ‘water’ looks a damn cool colour.

I’d wager it’s a woman. It’s a very feminine style.

Even more amazing is the water flowing in the storm water drain!

I’d be happy to see have that kind of graffiti in public areas. It’s not offensive/crap and looks quite good!

This guy does a lot of stuff around the eastern suburbs of Sydney. Grafitti artist on holiday, perhaps? He (she?) has a unique style and usually incoporates a vaugely political message.

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