Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Graffiti, good or bad?
I was about to post this story from BBC Lincolnshire with a comment to ask why they are stressing. This wall looks better with the graffiti than without it.
Then I followed a supplementary link and found I was suddenly not so enamoured of the graffiti artists. Who would want to spoil cute trains like these?
So is graffiti a legitimate expression of identity, a way of marking one's existence just like blogging or autobiography, or wanton vandalism? If both, what is okay and what not? Why do we appreciate Banksy (and I do..) when others see that as part of the wanton vandalism end of the spectrum?
I was about to post this story from BBC Lincolnshire with a comment to ask why they are stressing. This wall looks better with the graffiti than without it.
Then I followed a supplementary link and found I was suddenly not so enamoured of the graffiti artists. Who would want to spoil cute trains like these?
So is graffiti a legitimate expression of identity, a way of marking one's existence just like blogging or autobiography, or wanton vandalism? If both, what is okay and what not? Why do we appreciate Banksy (and I do..) when others see that as part of the wanton vandalism end of the spectrum?# posted by Mary Plain @ 7:41 pm 
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For me, it's not so much a mattter of good or bad but the power of writing to perform identity, and even to delight or disgust. In my blog I've referred to graffiti in terms of playfully subverting property- or territory-marking. But I was interested in how your post focused on public transport, often itself a carrier of that spectacular kind of corporate graffiti commonly known as advertising. Buses and trams are now regularly re-sprayed to carry words and images, but of course this is legitimate, a business in its own right. Good or bad?
Well I do think that like everything else there is something about appropriacy - I think it is awful to see carefully planned spaces with graffitti that jars with the environment. On other times `i Think it is fine to see it ; trouble is the right and wrong is on a subjective spectrum I guess.
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