Some individuals suggest that the origins of graffiti date back to the prolific work of the late 1960s “Old School” New York City subway graffiti writers. Others may interject by saying that one need only look at the political slogans of “wall painters,” that appeared during the numerous domestic and international conflicts of the 20th century. And then there are commentators who announce that clearly the relatively abundent graffiti that was done during ancient times in places like Pompei, Rome, or around Greece.
Frequently, however, I read or hear people say that we are all wrong, because the earliest type of graffiti is the cave painting. In fact, many of us who are knowledgeable about graffiti and street art have done this at some point in time.
Why is this wrong?
Although connecting the origins of graffiti to cave painting is both romantic and provocative, it’s a highly flawed assertion. Why?
First, we don’t have perfect knowledge about what occurred in those caves inhabited by our Paleolithic cousins. But even if we did, there is no reason to believe that the markings were done without the consent of the person who lived or worked there and not some sort of an intruder.
Second, some people may have mistakenly inferred that Banksy, the infamous British street artist, has suggested that the origins of graffiti was cave art. To clarify, he has done at least two works referencing prehistoric art. The first, in 2005, was when he (and perhaps his team) smuggled a fake rock art piece of a caveman pushing a shopping cart into the British museum. (This work remained on display for three days before it was discovered and removed). The second, in 2008, is a wall Banksy did that resembled the prehistoric cave paintings in Lascaux, France, but with a city worker who was pressure washing it away. Although these pieces make reference to a continuum, neither of them explicitly or implicitly suggest that they the cave art is or was graffiti.
Third, in order to judge or perhaps legitimate the existence of an action, behavior, or even a body of work, some people and organizations feel compelled to go to great lengths find historical anchors, no matter how flimsy the evidence. We see this with political campaigns, in the web sites of academic institutions, and with large corporations. This may also be the case with graffiti and street art.
Fourth, one of the most important reasons why some people believe that cave paintings are graffiti, is a failure to understand different definitions of graffiti, of which there are many. Although numerous definitions abound, in general graffiti is a type of vandalism that involves the willful and unwarranted act of marking a surface (e.g., wall, post, etc.). And when we examine the prehistoric cave paintings regardless of location, we should quickly realize that the markings are not graffiti.
Solutions
There are a handful of important strategies to combat this sort of thinking. It’s absolutely necessary when one attempts to develop a graffiti and street art literacy, to consult reliable sources. This includes, respected experts and peer review research. An expert is not necessarily a practitioner like a person who does a lot of tagging. The writer may know the best spots to get up (i.e., place their tags), but s/he may not be as well informed as the next guy. And just because someone has lived experience, it does not mean they have deep knowledge about a subject.
Peer review research is the gold standard in scholarly circles. It’s cumbersome and imperfect, but it is better threshold from which to judge the veracity of statements than lots of information that is readily available on the world wide web. More specifically, as of this writing there are two journals that specialize in publishing scholarship on graffiti and street art, Nuart Journal and Urban Creativity, both on-line. But these publications are not the only places to look for peer reviewed research on graffiti and street art. Many of the art, urban studies, and social science journals have occasional articles about graffiti and street art. Also there are an increasing number of peer reviewed books that are published that examine graffiti.
Thus it is time to stop blaming the caveman and do some homework when tracing back the origins of graffiti.
Photo Credit: Chris Beckett
Banksy, Council worker cleaning up the cave paintings – The Cans Festival, Waterloo, London
https://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/2465093025_4a6c9c8ff8_o.jpg608851Jeffrey Ian Rosshttps://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/jeffrey-ian-ross-logo-04.pngJeffrey Ian Ross2021-08-12 05:31:272021-08-12 05:31:27Stop giving the Neanderthals so much credit. Why prehistoric cave painting is not graffiti
Short of asking the writer or artist to explain his or her thought process surrounding the design and placement decisions behind a tag (the most common type of graffiti), piece, throw-up, etc., (or series of them), there are multiple ways to understand this activity.
One way of dissecting graffiti pieces and street art, is by thinking about the lines, colors, shapes, symbols, icons, repetition, and use of shadows, etc. that its practitioners play with.
Initially I try to quickly categorize the work. I ask myself is the piece mainly graffiti or is it primarily street art (i.e., stickers, noncommercial posters, stencils, etc.)? Then again, sometimes the work is not categorizable or easily categorizable.
I then ask, how much effort went into the piece, and this often gives me an indication about whether or not it is simply a tag or throw up, or something else, etc.
I also look at where the piece is located (also known a spot theory), in particular what type of surface is the work located on? Is it placed on a door, a mail box, a light pole, and where on that object? It is at eye level, or at foot level, or high up forcing the observer to ask the all too familiar question how did they manage to place the piece in that location without risking injury or death? The piece of graffiti or street art may be found on a street with a lot of pedestrian or vehicular traffic, or it may be in a back alley. Each of which sets up a dynamic of possibilities presented to the writer or artist.
If the piece is a tag or bubble letter design, I look at the size and try to determine what type of element or tool (i.e., marker, aerosol spray paint, paint brush, or even etching solution) the writers used to make their mark on the surface. I look for something called hand style; this embodies where the tag starts, where it ends, are there drippings, and were these drippings intentional? Are they simply lines or are there dots too? If so how many? How fat or narrow are the lines, dots, and does the writing try to emulate any know type styles. How many tags or stickers, posters, or stencils (in the case of street art) are there in the neighborhood? Is it a basic color scheme, or is it the same tag or sticker with different colors. I look for various recognizable symbols and patterns like crowns and dots and where they are located in the overall design.
I try to figure out how old the piece is; is it recent or old? Is it being crowded out by other works of graffiti and street art? Is it about to be overtaken by other pieces. Has anyone tried to buff it, by either scrapping off, or painting over it. Does it rest upon other tags, or fresh paint by someone who covered over other pieces.
Another thing to consider is the color. Most tags in a neighborhood, by the same writer may be of a similar color, but again as pieces become more complicated there are often more colors and more intricate designs.
With more complicated pieces I try to ask if it embodies some verbal or iconic representation (i.e., who or what is it trying to represent). Is it a caricature, what aspects is the individual writers/artists characterizing, is it a saying is it a joke etc.?
Does it play off something that currently exists like a window, piping, venting, a protrusion, landscape, natural or otherwise.
If it is a more intense piece of graffiti (more work than a tag) or complicated or intricate piece of street art, did it involve the participation of others and how did they do it?
https://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/49736494221_61ff77b196_o-scaled.jpg14852560Jeffrey Ian Rosshttps://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/jeffrey-ian-ross-logo-04.pngJeffrey Ian Ross2021-08-05 21:40:512024-01-07 12:59:27Attempting to understand the aesthetics of graffiti and street art pieces
Over the past thirty years many large municipalities and counties in the United States have experimented with violent crime reduction plans. These approaches have included, but are not limited to gun buyback programs, Weed and Seed, High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas, pulling levers, and numerous others. Some of them have been very well thought out, while others such as an emphasis on Stop and Frisk, have violated the constitutional rights of the citizens in the jurisdictions in which they were enacted.
Very few of these plans however, have led to their intended results.
A number of explanations can be advanced to explain why these violent crime reduction plans did not achieve their desired goals. Some of the reasons are more helpful than others.
To begin with, we might be quick to blame the lack of positive results on the poor training of law enforcement officers. This may explain some of the reasons why there were some initial missteps, but on the whole we can probably discount this idea.
In complimentary fashion, sometimes observers argue that there are not enough appropriate criminal justice practitioners (specifically law enforcement, prosecutors, probation officers, etc.) to properly do the job. Usually, however, it’s not because we don’t have sufficiently capable people to do the job properly. Resources can almost always be shifted around. It may be challenging but not impossible.
Sometimes violent crime reduction plans are criticized because they fail to consider the input from the communities that are most effected. In this day and age, few big city police departments or large county police departments make this kind of mistake. By the same token it must also be realized that the public sometimes has both unrealistic expectations of their law enforcement officers, and the strategies that they sometimes propose may be unconstitutional.
Another explanation is that the plans were not based on criminological theory, or on peer-reviewed criminal justice research, and were simply what some might call a preoccupation with a flavor of the day approach. In these cases, the mayor or county executive go to a conference, or somebody or some organization catches the ear of the city or county leadership, they hear about a violent crime reduction program that sounded promising (usually based on anecdotal evidence) in another jurisdiction that seems to be working, are appropriately persuaded (or smitten), and then suggest to the chief of police or head of public safety that it will work.
The two most important reasons, however, why violent crime reduction programs fail is because of the continuously changing leadership of the police department or the mayor, and the inflexibility of the plan. This is certainly the case with the city of Baltimore, where I work. Over the past two decades the city has had countless crime prevention plans, and approximately ten new commissioners of police. Shortly after the new well-meaning and intentioned police commissioner takes the job, they are suspended, resign or fired, and thus the plans that they were trying to implement are not given enough time to work before they are abandoned and something new is tried. This leads to decrease in morale among the rank and file and they approach each new crime fighting plan as one that will be soon abandoned. Thus for any new violent crime fighting approach that is going to be implemented, they need to sustain themselves past changing administrations.
In the case of inflexibility, police officers and commissioners must be given room to innovate in small doses. Crimes rates go up and down. Criminals come and go. They get arrested, go to jail or prison and some of them are released back into the community. Some of them become gainfully employed, while others get back in the game. Thus law enforcement needs to be flexible in order to adapt to changing circumstances. Thus stating that a crime reduction plan must work immediately or by one, two or three years’ time is unrealistic. We must give violent crime reduction plans time, we must continuously and systematically monitor their progress (preferably by outside experts), and quickly make appropriate adjustments when they do not appear to achieve their goals.
photo credit: Office of Public Affairs
title: VR12 Oakland – 48
https://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/25743235901_62130700bc_o.jpg13312000Jeffrey Ian Rosshttps://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/jeffrey-ian-ross-logo-04.pngJeffrey Ian Ross2021-07-29 21:31:142024-02-04 04:25:45Why most violent crime reductions plans don’t work and criteria for ones that do
Stop giving the Neanderthals so much credit. Why prehistoric cave painting is not graffiti
/by Jeffrey Ian RossSome individuals suggest that the origins of graffiti date back to the prolific work of the late 1960s “Old School” New York City subway graffiti writers. Others may interject by saying that one need only look at the political slogans of “wall painters,” that appeared during the numerous domestic and international conflicts of the 20th century. And then there are commentators who announce that clearly the relatively abundent graffiti that was done during ancient times in places like Pompei, Rome, or around Greece.
Frequently, however, I read or hear people say that we are all wrong, because the earliest type of graffiti is the cave painting. In fact, many of us who are knowledgeable about graffiti and street art have done this at some point in time.
Why is this wrong?
Although connecting the origins of graffiti to cave painting is both romantic and provocative, it’s a highly flawed assertion. Why?
First, we don’t have perfect knowledge about what occurred in those caves inhabited by our Paleolithic cousins. But even if we did, there is no reason to believe that the markings were done without the consent of the person who lived or worked there and not some sort of an intruder.
Second, some people may have mistakenly inferred that Banksy, the infamous British street artist, has suggested that the origins of graffiti was cave art. To clarify, he has done at least two works referencing prehistoric art. The first, in 2005, was when he (and perhaps his team) smuggled a fake rock art piece of a caveman pushing a shopping cart into the British museum. (This work remained on display for three days before it was discovered and removed). The second, in 2008, is a wall Banksy did that resembled the prehistoric cave paintings in Lascaux, France, but with a city worker who was pressure washing it away. Although these pieces make reference to a continuum, neither of them explicitly or implicitly suggest that they the cave art is or was graffiti.
Third, in order to judge or perhaps legitimate the existence of an action, behavior, or even a body of work, some people and organizations feel compelled to go to great lengths find historical anchors, no matter how flimsy the evidence. We see this with political campaigns, in the web sites of academic institutions, and with large corporations. This may also be the case with graffiti and street art.
Fourth, one of the most important reasons why some people believe that cave paintings are graffiti, is a failure to understand different definitions of graffiti, of which there are many. Although numerous definitions abound, in general graffiti is a type of vandalism that involves the willful and unwarranted act of marking a surface (e.g., wall, post, etc.). And when we examine the prehistoric cave paintings regardless of location, we should quickly realize that the markings are not graffiti.
Solutions
There are a handful of important strategies to combat this sort of thinking. It’s absolutely necessary when one attempts to develop a graffiti and street art literacy, to consult reliable sources. This includes, respected experts and peer review research. An expert is not necessarily a practitioner like a person who does a lot of tagging. The writer may know the best spots to get up (i.e., place their tags), but s/he may not be as well informed as the next guy. And just because someone has lived experience, it does not mean they have deep knowledge about a subject.
Peer review research is the gold standard in scholarly circles. It’s cumbersome and imperfect, but it is better threshold from which to judge the veracity of statements than lots of information that is readily available on the world wide web. More specifically, as of this writing there are two journals that specialize in publishing scholarship on graffiti and street art, Nuart Journal and Urban Creativity, both on-line. But these publications are not the only places to look for peer reviewed research on graffiti and street art. Many of the art, urban studies, and social science journals have occasional articles about graffiti and street art. Also there are an increasing number of peer reviewed books that are published that examine graffiti.
Thus it is time to stop blaming the caveman and do some homework when tracing back the origins of graffiti.
Photo Credit: Chris Beckett
Banksy, Council worker cleaning up the cave paintings – The Cans Festival, Waterloo, London
Attempting to understand the aesthetics of graffiti and street art pieces
/by Jeffrey Ian RossUrban dwellers pass by graffiti and street art every day without stopping to take notice, but during those rare moments when we have time and motivation it’s useful to examine the aesthetics of this type of urban art in our community or the places we travel to.
Short of asking the writer or artist to explain his or her thought process surrounding the design and placement decisions behind a tag (the most common type of graffiti), piece, throw-up, etc., (or series of them), there are multiple ways to understand this activity.
One way of dissecting graffiti pieces and street art, is by thinking about the lines, colors, shapes, symbols, icons, repetition, and use of shadows, etc. that its practitioners play with.
Initially I try to quickly categorize the work. I ask myself is the piece mainly graffiti or is it primarily street art (i.e., stickers, noncommercial posters, stencils, etc.)? Then again, sometimes the work is not categorizable or easily categorizable.
I then ask, how much effort went into the piece, and this often gives me an indication about whether or not it is simply a tag or throw up, or something else, etc.
I also look at where the piece is located (also known a spot theory), in particular what type of surface is the work located on? Is it placed on a door, a mail box, a light pole, and where on that object? It is at eye level, or at foot level, or high up forcing the observer to ask the all too familiar question how did they manage to place the piece in that location without risking injury or death? The piece of graffiti or street art may be found on a street with a lot of pedestrian or vehicular traffic, or it may be in a back alley. Each of which sets up a dynamic of possibilities presented to the writer or artist.
If the piece is a tag or bubble letter design, I look at the size and try to determine what type of element or tool (i.e., marker, aerosol spray paint, paint brush, or even etching solution) the writers used to make their mark on the surface. I look for something called hand style; this embodies where the tag starts, where it ends, are there drippings, and were these drippings intentional? Are they simply lines or are there dots too? If so how many? How fat or narrow are the lines, dots, and does the writing try to emulate any know type styles. How many tags or stickers, posters, or stencils (in the case of street art) are there in the neighborhood? Is it a basic color scheme, or is it the same tag or sticker with different colors. I look for various recognizable symbols and patterns like crowns and dots and where they are located in the overall design.
I try to figure out how old the piece is; is it recent or old? Is it being crowded out by other works of graffiti and street art? Is it about to be overtaken by other pieces. Has anyone tried to buff it, by either scrapping off, or painting over it. Does it rest upon other tags, or fresh paint by someone who covered over other pieces.
Another thing to consider is the color. Most tags in a neighborhood, by the same writer may be of a similar color, but again as pieces become more complicated there are often more colors and more intricate designs.
With more complicated pieces I try to ask if it embodies some verbal or iconic representation (i.e., who or what is it trying to represent). Is it a caricature, what aspects is the individual writers/artists characterizing, is it a saying is it a joke etc.?
Does it play off something that currently exists like a window, piping, venting, a protrusion, landscape, natural or otherwise.
If it is a more intense piece of graffiti (more work than a tag) or complicated or intricate piece of street art, did it involve the participation of others and how did they do it?
By forcing oneself to answer these kinds of questions, it may lead one to better appreciate the skill and risks that people take to engage in graffiti and street art. It may also enable us to more fully understand the numerous types of art, and our urban public spaces.
Photo credit: Aaron Yoo
Title: Microscope
Why most violent crime reductions plans don’t work and criteria for ones that do
/by Jeffrey Ian RossOver the past thirty years many large municipalities and counties in the United States have experimented with violent crime reduction plans. These approaches have included, but are not limited to gun buyback programs, Weed and Seed, High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas, pulling levers, and numerous others. Some of them have been very well thought out, while others such as an emphasis on Stop and Frisk, have violated the constitutional rights of the citizens in the jurisdictions in which they were enacted.
Very few of these plans however, have led to their intended results.
A number of explanations can be advanced to explain why these violent crime reduction plans did not achieve their desired goals. Some of the reasons are more helpful than others.
To begin with, we might be quick to blame the lack of positive results on the poor training of law enforcement officers. This may explain some of the reasons why there were some initial missteps, but on the whole we can probably discount this idea.
In complimentary fashion, sometimes observers argue that there are not enough appropriate criminal justice practitioners (specifically law enforcement, prosecutors, probation officers, etc.) to properly do the job. Usually, however, it’s not because we don’t have sufficiently capable people to do the job properly. Resources can almost always be shifted around. It may be challenging but not impossible.
Sometimes violent crime reduction plans are criticized because they fail to consider the input from the communities that are most effected. In this day and age, few big city police departments or large county police departments make this kind of mistake. By the same token it must also be realized that the public sometimes has both unrealistic expectations of their law enforcement officers, and the strategies that they sometimes propose may be unconstitutional.
Another explanation is that the plans were not based on criminological theory, or on peer-reviewed criminal justice research, and were simply what some might call a preoccupation with a flavor of the day approach. In these cases, the mayor or county executive go to a conference, or somebody or some organization catches the ear of the city or county leadership, they hear about a violent crime reduction program that sounded promising (usually based on anecdotal evidence) in another jurisdiction that seems to be working, are appropriately persuaded (or smitten), and then suggest to the chief of police or head of public safety that it will work.
The two most important reasons, however, why violent crime reduction programs fail is because of the continuously changing leadership of the police department or the mayor, and the inflexibility of the plan. This is certainly the case with the city of Baltimore, where I work. Over the past two decades the city has had countless crime prevention plans, and approximately ten new commissioners of police. Shortly after the new well-meaning and intentioned police commissioner takes the job, they are suspended, resign or fired, and thus the plans that they were trying to implement are not given enough time to work before they are abandoned and something new is tried. This leads to decrease in morale among the rank and file and they approach each new crime fighting plan as one that will be soon abandoned. Thus for any new violent crime fighting approach that is going to be implemented, they need to sustain themselves past changing administrations.
In the case of inflexibility, police officers and commissioners must be given room to innovate in small doses. Crimes rates go up and down. Criminals come and go. They get arrested, go to jail or prison and some of them are released back into the community. Some of them become gainfully employed, while others get back in the game. Thus law enforcement needs to be flexible in order to adapt to changing circumstances. Thus stating that a crime reduction plan must work immediately or by one, two or three years’ time is unrealistic. We must give violent crime reduction plans time, we must continuously and systematically monitor their progress (preferably by outside experts), and quickly make appropriate adjustments when they do not appear to achieve their goals.
photo credit: Office of Public Affairs
title: VR12 Oakland – 48