Activist Project: Graffiti Project

Although for the most part graffiti is seen as a nuisance rather than an art form, there are some people who have taken it upon themselves to change this perception. Graffiti is no longer just tagging on walls and writing profanities in back alleys, it has become an art form and a medium for change. There are two main ways that I have seen graffiti being used to create a change in the environment; stating political or social beliefs in order to instigate change, or contributing to the issue of graffiti in a neighbourhood in order to improve the over-all image. In my opinion, both of these styles show a good deal of activism.

When using graffiti as medium to instigate change, it has a very strong impact. Mostly because it is seen widely by people in the area, and it is in a more urban format which relates to a lot of people. It has always been seen as something that was illicit and criminal, where kids would just tag everything and anything they saw. Now graffiti is seen as an art form and people are using that to their advantage. Most of the graffiti that is produced in order to provoke people's thoughts are very direct, to the point statements or questions. One example is an unknown artist who has written "If you die today will you go to heaven?", "I don't feel like an ant but I sure look like one" (which comments on the population as a whole and our perception of individuality versus the whole) and "STOP Buying" - it was a stop sign with the word 'buying' spray-painted underneath the word STOP. The last one seems to me to be the most relevant since it deals with consumerism and our societies priorities.

The second way in which graffiti has changed into an activist movement is the way in which people are dealing with it in residential areas.  A friend of mine who is in Police Foundations at Humber's Lakeshore campus was involved in 'The Croft Street Graffiti Project", where they went to a residential neighbourhood to paint over the graffiti that was bothering the residents. They hired artists to design murals and more 'family friendly' graffiti designs to go over the walls they were repainting. This was an initiative that they took in order to improve the environment around them, and to contribute to the neighbourhood that some of their classmates came from. I was really proud of him for taking the initiative to make something a little bit better, even if he didn't have to do much.

It just goes to show you that a little bit of paint can do so much; it can be harmful, it can be insightful, or it can be inspirational. It's all in how you use it.

Culture Jamming

I have been stumped on what to write for this entry for the longest time, mostly because I couldn't wrap my head around what culture jamming was. But, since last class when Ian showed us a few examples, I think I've finally got a hold on it. 

I'm not going to try to write out a definition of what culture jamming is, because I might not do it justice. Instead, I'm going to use two examples that Ian gave us in class that stood out in my mind, and that helped me to understand the concept and why it is so useful in our society.

The first example is the alteration, modification, and rearrangement of billboards. The most popular example of these are the billboards that are created and displayed by Ron English. They are highly satirical, and reflective of the society that we live in today. Of late, the billboards have reflected the recent American Presidential election, but they range from commenting on oil prices, to the "deceiving" qualities of Fox News. English is taking something that is mundane and trivial, and turning it into a pop culture phenomenon. It is particularly effective since billboards are seen by thousands of people every day, and on a huge scale. He is changing what we perceive to be advertising and the media, which is something that occasionally we all need; we need to be reminded of what is really out there in the media world, and what we can do with it.

Another example, although not as poignant as Ron English's billboards, is a photograph Ian showed us from France. Graffitied onto the sidewalk the words  "Obeis, Travaille, Consomme, et Tes Toi" (Obey, work, consume, and shut up) caught my attention, and not just because I understood what it meant in French. It seemed oddly out of place, and like a very accurate commentary on society. I say accurate because that is what we're meant to do in our society now: we work, we consume like no one's business, we obey (the trends, the media, everything) and we shut up and don't argue.

So as much as I personally can't give you my defintion of culture jamming, I hope that these examples will make it a bit clearer for you, as they did for me.

Participatory Cultures

When most people hear the term 'participatory culture', the first social network that they think about is Facebook. To be perfectly honest, it is the first thing that I think about since most of us are all so involved with Facebook in our daily lives. But, since this is what is probably expected of this discussion post, I won't be talking about Facebook. Instead, I am going to talk about, well, this; a blog. 

There are hundreds of sites that host blogs, and blogspot just happens to be the one that I chose to use to host mine. And before this class, as I have previously mentioned, I did not have a blog, so this was completely new territory for me. However, I have come to notice just how powerful and useful a blog can be. It is a place to vocalize opinions, discuss current events, and generally just let it all out. However, since there are no rules or regulations on what can be posted on the internet, much less a personal blog, there are some people who take advantage of that opportunity. An example of the use, or to some people the abuse, of this privilege happened a few months ago concerning the blog of a political figure in Ontario. He openly published on his blog that he advocated women carrying concealed weapons, because ' if they [women and gays] don't want to be the object of hate crimes, then they should do something to protect themselves.' Needless to say, this candidate removed himself from the runnings during the election and was put under very tight criticism afterwards.

In his book 'Free Culture',  Lawrence Lessig illustrates blog culture, and how it is a kind of  "public diary...it records private facts in a public way." He also goes further into the development and uses of a blog by saying : 

"...blogs have taken on a very different character. There are some who us the space simply to talk about their private life. But there are many others who use the space to engage in public discourse. Discussing matters of public import, criticizing others who are mistaken in their views...offering solutions to the problems we all see: blogs create the sense of a virtual public meeting, but one in which we don't all hope to be there at the same time..."

After reading Lessig's book, I specifically remembered this excerpt,  because of the way it related to the exact kind of social networking that we were doing in this class.

Works Cited

Lessig, Lawrence. Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity. London: Penguin Books, 2004.