(untitled stencil, by anonymous artist, found in 2006 in New York)
BRICOLEUR AESTHETICS AND THE BUILT TERRAIN:
AN INQUIRY INTO THE ART OF COLLECTIVE DISSENT
An Ethnography
By Shaina DeCiryan
Spring 2007
ABSTRACT
While many Americans are content to live their lives in accordance with the
established social orders they encounter, activist subcultures prefer to imagine and
actively try to cultivate grassroots changes to work towards what they consider to be a
more responsible, sustainable world. This ethnography explores several ways in which
activist artists create hybridized forms of art to express and provoke public
consciousness. Activist artists cause others to question the idea of private property by
using the cityscape as their canvas, and in doing so help the people who occupy these
spaces in their everyday lives reclaim their ability to collectively interact and voice their
opinions in these spaces. A second theme addressed in this paper is how activists are
using art as a tool for public education. By explaining the interconnected nature of the
world through images, groups such as the Beehive Collective help the viewer visualize
the current results of American foreign policy and a society based on consumerism, as
well as his or her role within the system. These examples tie into a range of social
changes that activists are pursuing through art that ‘agitates, educates and organizes’.
2
A TABLE OF CONTENTS
|
PART ONE
INTRODUCTION
4
Research Statement and Questions 5
Overview of Paper and Each Section 6
PART TWO
|
LITERATURE REVIEW
6
Willis: A Homology of Style 7
Hebdige: Subcultural Style as Bricolage 7
Taussig: Defacement 8
Bakhtin: The Novelized Past 9
Foucault: Power Relations as ‘Strategic Games Between Liberties’ 10
|
PART THREE
RESEARCH METHODS & SETTINGS
11
Understanding Resistance Art 11
Entry to Setting 14
Methods 15
Reflexive 17
PART FOUR
|
THE ACTIVIST AS ARTIST
19
Bricolage Aesthetics: The Inventive Style of Activist Subcultures 21
The Collective: an Organic, Homological Structure of Support 24
PART FIVE
|
AGITATING, EDUCATING, ORGANIZING: THE ART OF DISSENT
Engaging the Passerby: Street Art as an Arbiter of Social Dialogue 27
Defacing to Reveal: Rethinking the Commodification of Public Space 29
PART SIX
|
CREATIVELY NEGOTIATING SPACE AND POWER 31
Reclaiming Public Space for the Public 32
Negotiating Alternative Histories 35
PART SEVEN
|
CONCLUSION 37
Bibliography 38
Index of Images 39
Glossary of Terms 39
Glossary of Activist Art Websites
3
27
PART ONE
|
INTRODUCTION
From a white-walled, professional-looking University classroom emanated a
smell born out of the dangerous combination of unusually hot weather and a crowd that
valued radical theory over the concept of bathing. Normally, students and professors fill
this classroom-- a space that often acts as a learning environment for standard liberal arts
courses, such as Economics, Philosophy and American History. The “invisible hand”,
Plato’s Republic, the epic histories of the Civil War and other notions that compose
standard American academic curricula fill the minds of the students. The disconnection
between the everyday lives of the students, and the curricula they are being educated
with, is probably not very often a topic of discussion, yet this day was different. The
classroom had become a radical theory seminar—one of many offered at the National
Conference for Organized Resistance (NCOR), hosted annually at a major university in
Washington DC. The classroom was packed wall-to-wall with quirkily dressed people
from across the country. They were brought together in this oddly formal space because
of a shared set of values—values which do not allow them to passively accept concepts
such as free-market economics, hierarchic organizations of society, and politically
scripted histories.
The refusal of these widely accepted academic ideas by the minds that occupied the
room was made even more explicit by the apparent refusal of widely accepted notions of
fashion, and presentations of self, as well. Stretched ear lobes, distinctive facial piercing,
altered or vintage clothing, tattoos, and haircuts ranging from eccentrically snipped
mullets to impressive masses of trinket-laden dreadlocks reveal these individuals’
alignment with anarchist ideals and activist lifestyles. I did not travel to NCOR, however,
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to revel in the impressive smell of the radical theory—or to sensationalize a group of
quirkily dressed 20-30 year olds. Instead, I was there to interact with the sorts of activists
who use visual tactics for advocating social dissent and public education.
These interactions have fueled this ethnography, and have allowed me to inquire
into the lifestyle and intentions of the individuals and collectives who create art with the
intention to “agitate, educate and organize”1 others about a range of social issues. By
extending the theories outlined in my literature review to the data and knowledge I have
gathered throughout my research, this ethnography forms a basis of understanding about
the growing subculture of activist artists and their connection with the street art
movement. Few academic reviews have been published on this topic; this ethnography is
intended to fill this gap in the research, and also serve as a point of departure for others
who wish to explore this topic.
Research Statement
In order to focus my research, I have developed several research questions to base
my inquiry on. As my knowledge about my participants and their interests has grown,
these questions have undergone a dramatic evolution that has allowed me to continually
refine the intent of my research. This ethnography will explore several ways of answering
the following research questions-- based on the information I have gathered, as well as a
theoretical analysis that will make sense of and situate the data into its global context:
In what ways do activists use art and visual media to:
a. express and advocate their radical beliefs?
b. actively occupy public spaces
1
Josh MacPhee, of justseeds.org, used this phrase to describe the purpose of activist art in an NCOR
seminar. However, the phrase is a sort of ‘anti-copyright’ idea used by many activist groups, and cannot be
attributed to a specific individual.
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c. reorder and subvert the range of public media and symbols available in
the wider community?
d. reclaim public spaces to explore social issues and alternative histories?
Overview of Paper and Each Section
This paper is by no means a comprehensive study, but rather an inquiry into the
process of visual resistance that the activist artists I have observed and interacted with
have used to subvert, occupy and actively transform the material world around them. In
order to create a cohesive review of the methods that activist artists use to accomplish
these goals, I have focused on several key aspects of activist art. After the introduction, I
have included a review of the literature and theoretical bases that have informed my
analysis. My research methods, and a description of the setting follow the literature
review, to give the reader an idea of how I found my data and the sort of subcultural
groups I have been studying. The first section of my paper focuses on describing several
elements of activists artists, including the way they use aesthetic styles and collective
group organizations to carry out their work successfully. A second section expands upon
several examples of street art forms, and the intentions they are created with. The final
and third section is an analysis of the importance of occupying space to the street art
movement as a way of negotiating power relations.
PART TWO
|
LITERATURE REVIEW
Grounding the data in theoretical frameworks developed by established
anthropologists is essential to the process of situating the research in the larger body of
academic knowledge. This not only helps make sense of the data itself, but also allows
the data to connect and contribute to others who wish to gain knowledge in this area.
Throughout the course of my initial research, I was unable to find ethnographic studies
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that were particularly relevant to my topic. This may be due to the relatively recent
development of the style of activist art I am examining in this paper, which has been
developed by the current generation of 20-30 year olds. Thus, in order to make sense of
my findings, I have drawn upon the work of theorists who have studied quite different
cultural contexts, but have used theoretical frameworks that I can reapply and extend to
my own research.
Willis: Collective Homology
First applied to the social sciences by Levi-Strauss, the idea of a homology of
style has been applied to subcultural style by Paul Willis (1978) to describe a sort of
aesthetic resonance that connected the ideals of the group with their lifestyle and forms of
expression. Popular myth and media often frames the activists and anarchist subcultural
groups, who create visual forms of resistance, to be “lawless” (Gelder and Thornton
1997: 139). Yet, while they do not subscribe to traditional American values and politics,
this does not mean these groups function without any sort of underlying order. Instead,
an order is composed by a “symbolic fit” between the way groups are organized, the way
members of the group make sense of the world ideologically, and the aesthetic
expressions that result from their lifestyles. Thus, activist arts appropriate into their
distinctive creations and ensembles symbols and objects which are “homologous with the
focal concerns, activities, group structure, and collective self-image of the subculture”
(Gelder and Thornton 1997: 137).
Hebdige: Subcultural Style as Bricolage
The functions of subcultural aesthetics that developed within the 1970s punk
movement, as described by Dick Hebdige in Subculture: The Meaning of Style, continue
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to inspire and identify members of subcultural genres today. Hebdige’s use of the term
Bricolage to refer to radical fashion is one of the key theories I am extending in my
analysis of the techniques activists use to create an art of rebellion (Gelder and Thornton
1997: 137) .
According to Hebdige, there are two main ways in which the media undermines
forms of subcultural resistance: through the commodification of punk styles and fetishes,
and the ideological redefinition and resituation of deviance by governing forces (Gelder
and Thornton 1997: 131). Similarly, in the context of activist artists, this resituation of
deviant behavior allows the media to consign activists into a framework of dominant
meanings, which categorize their behaviors and actions under limited or demonized
categories and essentially undermines their opinions. These categories prevent them from
being heard or taken seriously, and often cause discrimination based on age or sexuality.
As far as commodification goes, however, activists do not seem to be merely
letting the media absorb and neutralize their tactics by selling their style. Instead, they are
taking direct actions to subvert and re-appropriate corporate media so they can undermine
the companies and organizations that they feel are morally corrupt in their use of
financial power—sort of turning the tables from what Hebdige observed in the 1970s.
Taussig: Defacement
Michael Taussig takes on the complex nature of public secrecy and the act of
defacing the things society holds most sacred in Defacement: Public Secrecy and the
Labour of the Negative. When applied to the idea of activists defacing the facades of
buildings, and thus edifying the urban terrain with their art, Taussig’s claims form an
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interesting point of departure for understanding the implications of using activist art to
subvert and ‘deface’ public property.
According to activists, corporations create many public secrets that exist to
protect their private economic practices. However, by defacing an advertisement, or the
wall of an abandoned building, activists are not only creating a new object—a defaced
object, which carries subverted meanings—but also creating a more critical sense of what
the object was before it was defaced. In this way, activists can be seen as overturning
corporate secrets—uncovering the salary of Exxon’s CEO here, or discovering the
practices of KFC chicken farms – in an attempt to hold them more socially responsible.
By deconstructing and subverting the secrets of these companies through visual
narratives, or tagging an otherwise eschewed city space into a place for art, activists
“deface to reveal” (Taussig 1999: 7).
Bakhtin: The Novelized Past
In the Dialogic Imagination, Bakhtin (1981) describes the way in which elite
histories are constructed as a way of cementing an favorably epic version of the past in a
sort of fixed mode that allows it to be distanced from the everyday. Typical American
history textbooks contain many of these epic histories, such as Columbus discovering
America, and the idea of “manifest destiny” that allowed the brave American pioneers to
claim the West as a place given to them by God. “Everything incorporated into this past
was simultaneously incorporated into a condition of authentic essence and significance,
but therefore also took on conclusiveness and finality” (Bakhtin 1981: 16).
Yet the elite version of history is not the only version of the past. A form of
novelized history that has a more everyday familiarity to the people who value it also
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exists, in what Bakhtin relates to the idea of carnival, calling it “the low language of the
contemporary” (1981: 21). Activist street artists are creating a similar phenomenon
through alternative history projects that aim to reconnect people with the histories that are
relevant and important to their everyday lives.
Foucault: Power Relations as “Strategic Games Between Liberties”
When Foucault was asked to explicitly distinguish power from domination-concepts which had previously remained unexplained in his work, he explained
“Minimizing domination is the task which connects ethics and politics”(O’Leary: 2002,
158). Power is a concept of universal proportion, as the fluctuating forces of the world
manifest differences in both the order of the natural realm, and the relative order
contrived by the human forces of social proportion. Domination, as Foucault argued, is
the perversion of power, and is unhealthy in its repression of separation between society
and politics.
The American discourse of ‘freedom’ as written in the Constitution allows for the
perversity of power in the eyes of activist artists. The direct actions they carry out to
enact social change pursue a different discourse of freedom, and as Foucault writes “is
rooted in our unwillingness to comply”(O’Leary: 2002, 160). This may be applied to
understanding the goals of activist artists, as it opposes both the discourse of ‘American
patriotic freedom’, as well as the Hegelian notion that frames freedom as a utopian end
that can only result in a society of perfect equality. Instead, activist artists navigate the
power relations in what Foucault called a “strategic game between liberties” through
forms of visual resistance.
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PART THREE
| RESEARCH METHODS & SETTINGS
Constructing a working definition of what ‘radical art’ or ‘activist art’ is, or can
be, is a rather delicate issue. There are many different styles and forms of visual media
that could be considered to be of this category, including wheat pasting, graffiti,
stenciling, and street art, protest banners, educational visual narratives, recycled
sculpture, and many more. New forms and new combinations of forms are evolving
everyday. Thus, if one considered activist art to be a movement, it would not be a
movement defined by medium, but rather, the essence that links these art forms to one
another is the intention they are created with, and most importantly, the spaces they are
intended to occupy. Traditional forms of art are often displayed with varying levels of
ritual as ‘decoration’ or ‘high art’ in galleries, homes, and the waiting rooms of dental
offices. Being ‘displayed’ means the work of the artist is somewhat passively occupying
space. This form of art is to be looked at and enjoyed aesthetically, and perhaps it will
even provoke philosophical reflection, but it does so with little risk because it is fulfilling
a previously established public function.
Understanding Resistance Art
The people behind the art that this ethnography examines are not merely artists
creating art. What they create is not meant to passively fulfill the function that art has
been given in the past century. Instead, they are activists creating art, art that is an active
tool for exploring new ways of interacting in the world, for educating people about the
social injustices taking place around them, and as a way for reclaiming public space for
the everyday people that occupy it.
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Thus, a key aspect to understanding the art made by activists is the dynamic
nature it takes on. Instead of politely resting their work within a framed space, activist
artists intrude upon private property. Work, such as that of the artist Blu, pictured below,
fill spaces the artist was not asked to fill with messages the artist was not paid or asked to
tell. This piece, painted in Barcelona, provokes one to consider the idea of evolution.
Furthermore, activist art does not merely serve to contrast traditional art forms. Because
of its typically urban setting, it stands in direct contrast to advertisements—sponsored
media, which is deemed legitimate by governing officials, and is a sight that is generally
taken-for-granted.
Opinions on the marking of public space vary greatly, usually in accordance with
one’s cultural lenses and aesthetic persuasions. Some people call it graffiti, others call it
‘vandalism’, or simply a ‘nuisance’. Often, graffiti is attributed to the ever-culpable
rebellious teenager. However, a closer look at some of the images that are produced in
the spirit of street art reveal that they are crafted much more intentionally than one might
expect.
Activists who make art, which I am referring to throughout this paper as ‘activist
artists’, come from a variety of backgrounds, but they all have in common a passion for
resistance and the active pursuit of a better world. The people I involved in this
ethnography range from being in their early twenties to their mid-thirties. While people
of all ages are creating forms of visual resistance in the world today, the members of this
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rising generation seem to be the predominant force that refuses to perpetuate the lifestyles
of the previous generation, and the ones who are thus pushing activist art to new levels.
Many are university students, or college graduates, and are using their education to make
grassroots changes in the world. Some work as designers or do other jobs by day to make
a living, but at night they create the work that allows them to express the ideals they are
passionate about. As Jesse, a Chicago-based artist that I met at NCOR, explained to me
through an e-mail interview, “During the day I do the work that supports me financially, I
do graphic design […] but when I have a night off I go tagging with my friends and that
is when I actually get to express my opinion about the world”.
Often, these individuals are active members of ‘collectives’, which allow them to
develop their work and ideas collaboratively, and enables them to carry out larger-scale,
more ambitious projects with the many hands of the group. These groups often take on an
almost subcultural quality, the characteristics of which vary based on the degree of
radical ideology they align themselves with, as well as their overall lifestyle choices. I’ve
come across several different methods of visual resistance used by activist subcultures.
Groups such as the Beehive Collective educate and raise awareness in a humble,
organized manner through images that serve as compelling visual narratives that inform
the viewers about social issues. The groups mission statement, available on their website,
expresses these values that Beehive tries to reflect in every aspect of their work,
An important aspect of our mission is that all our work is anonymous and anticopyright, for free use as popular education tools. We are trying to dispel the
tradition of activism that is based on books, experts, speeches, and “hoarding
knowledge”, by creating communication methods that are more holistic,
accessible and invite participation… inspiring action, instead of passive listening
or absorbing. [beehivecollective.org]
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This picture of a polar bear entangled in a leaking oil
pipeline reveals the troubles of drilling in the Arctic
Wildlife Refuge. The image is a cropped portion
from a larger visual narrative which visually places
this polar bear, and the issue of oil drilling, in the
context of ‘bad guy’ oil companies, other forms of environmental degradation, and the
apathetic, consumerist American values, represented by larvae watching TV, eating
McDonalds, tattooed in barcodes and laden with shopping bags, credit cards, and cash.
Entry to Setting
In order to find participants for my study, and attend relevant events, I began
talking to several other students at my college who I knew were interested in activism or
street art and graffiti. I also looked at the urban environments I have had access to
throughout the course of this research: Asheville, Orlando and Washington DC. I also
searched online for artist websites, subscribed via e-mail to several visual resistance
themed websites or blogs, and e-mailed individuals who are involved in making
resistance art.
Because of the strong network that activists have created in the everyday world
and on the Internet, I was able to draw upon the ‘snowball effect’ and finding activist
artists was simple. In doing so, and by interacting with individuals in the area, I was able
to learn of several interesting events, such as the NCOR conference, and by discussing
perceptions of radical street art at related events in downtown Asheville. These events
allowed me to connect with individuals, as well as experience and observe the lived
experiences of activist artists.
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Methods
Once I had gained access to these groups, however, I used several research
methods in order to gather the stories and information that have grounded this thesis.
Participant observation, interviews and content analysis of primary texts are the
anthropological methods I have used to gather my data and working knowledge of my
subjects. Based on the qualitative nature of my research methodology, these methods
have allowed me to value quality over quantity in my research process. The resulting data
is based not in quantitative percentages and graphs, and allows me to make no claims to
discovering any universalizing, normative truths about my participants. Rather, it is based
on more personal, in-depth accounts that better reflect the experiences of my participants,
as well as the social importance of the art through which they voice their values and
views of society.
Due to the socially deviant, and often subversive values of my participants, I have
considered my methods very intentionally, so that they would allow me to carry out my
research in ways which would allow my participants to interact with me as naturally as
possible, while also properly informing them of my research. For the privacy of my
participants, I have asked their permission when I used recording devices, or taken notes
about any specific observations I have made—these recordings and notes have been kept
in a secure place throughout the course of the research. Also, the participants have been
given aliases so they may remain anonymous throughout this thesis.
First-hand accounts and specifically answered questions from participants allow
researchers to understand their subjects in a way that is complimentary to the knowledge
gained by other methods, such as participant observation. Given the values of my
15
participants, however, and the time restrictions of my research, many aspects of
formalized interview techniques proved distracting or unworkable. The mere mention of
the word ‘interview’ often made my potential interviewees nervous, and several felt they
had nothing to say, beyond basic descriptions of what they where doing. Finally I asked
someone if I could talk to her sometime on her thoughts about activist art, and the
conversation that ensued was very helpful to my research, as she seemed much more
candid than when I tried to interview her.
I have interviewed eight participants from a variety of backgrounds and locationssome via face-to-face interviews, and others through e-mail correspondence. However, I
have had many more informal conversations with other participants, which I have taken
field notes on, as well as allowed to develop my overall understanding of activist artists.
The e-mail correspondences have allowed me to contact participants from Chicago, Los
Angeles, New York, Maine and the UK.
Due to the importance of movement and ‘direct action’ to my participants,
interacting with them through participant observation, and observing the primary texts
they have created has provided me with the richest aspects of my data. While formal
interviews felt unnatural and contrived, (and seemed to take them uncomfortably out of
their element), being at a radical theory conference, a national protest, a graffiti art show,
and other key gatherings for activist artists has allowed me to get a very candid
perspective of their aesthetic and ethical values, the ways they interact with one another,
and of the process that informed and motivated their art, as well as produce it.
The semiotics of art and the social texts created by activist artists is central to the
focus of this paper, so analyzing images and texts, such as zines, was a crucial aspect of
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my research. The internet has been surprisingly helpful, as many artists and collectives
have personal web pages and blogs upon which they display their own artwork as well as
the anonymous or tagged work of other street artists (See Glossary for Listing).
Oftentimes, the online photos are accompanied by commentaries by the groups, such as
the screenshot of the Beehive Collective site (below), as well as blog-style commentary
from others who ‘like’
the pieces, or are
otherwise interested in
them. These overt
displays of discussion
and social interaction
have been helpful sources
of data, and reveal an
interesting layer of
interaction that is taking place in the virtual environment.
Reflexive
When I was trying to choose a topic for this ethnography, I knew that I wanted to
study the way people interact with art, and the everyday importance of visual
environments. We are constantly bombarded by images and symbols in our current
society. I am fascinated by what repercussions new forms of communication and our
increasingly Globalized interactions have, and will have on society. One way of being
able to notice and see the effects of these repercussions is through art and aesthetics, as
they are key aspects of how humans negotiate their everyday existences. When the
17
Beehive Collective came to Warren Wilson in Spring 2006, I began to wonder how
activists respond to and negotiate the injustices they perceive in the world through visual
media.
In order to carry out a valid study of this topic, I have been analyzing the way in
which subjectivities are affecting the way I perceive, organize and interpret information.
While I will never be able to be completely aware of all my subjectivities, I have tried to
be as objective as possible throughout this ethnography to ensure that my perspective on
my participants and their art has not been negatively framed throughout my process. This
allows me to take advantage of the understanding they afford me, while also remaining
open to the many possibilities that rest outside of them. Given my identity as a female
college student with an interest in art and anthropology, I rarely experienced major
cultural divides that prevented communication between my participants and I. However,
there are several personal ‘lenses’ that influence my perceptions based on my experiences
and identity. Throughout the process of my research, as well as the process of analyzing
and reporting on it, I have made an effort to question, and remain wary of the following
subjective lenses.
The most basic lens that orders my experiences is one I will call my personal
context lens, and is composed of the opinions I have formulated on activist art based on
my experiences with it in the past. This lens is not inherently bad, as it has helped me
choose the topic, yet I must be careful that I do not formulate subjective assumptions
about my participants, and their work based on the experiences I have had with activist
art in the past. A second prominent lens results from my identity, and overarching
worldview, as a student of anthropology, and burgeoning member of the academic
18
community at large. My interest in social justice composes a third lens, which is of
relevance because of my personal views and assumptions regarding social issues that I
strongly identify with and choose to advocate through my own lifestyle choices.
Due to the aesthetic aspects of this project, my ideas about what art is and
signifies to the individuals involved in the ‘life’ of art objects is highly influenced by my
own interest in making art with my own hands, and enjoying things made by others. I
have tried to prevent these personal views to prevent me from reporting on some groups
in equal terms as others, or idealizing the acts of visual resistance I am studying.
PART FOUR
|
THE ACTIVIST AS ARTIST
They are the makers of the whimsical Charlie Chaplin stencils one may see
stenciled on the side of a power box on Tunnel Road, in Asheville; they are muralists
who wish to beautify their community by creating edifying graffiti; and they are the
‘subvertisers’ and the ‘adbusters’ who decry the pervasiveness of corporate media. Yet in
order to understand why activist artists create things as they do, we must understand
values and lifestyle choices that fuel their creativity. How do activist artists choose to
interact within the world? What gives activists a feeling of agency within a society that
they are morally opposed to—in which they feel the concept of freedom is heavily
monitored by cohesive social norms and a dangerous obsession with consumerism?
Before my data and analysis may explain the answers to these sort of questions, I will
describe a few typical scenes in the distinctive experiences lived by the sorts of people
who activist art.
Let’s move to a small college café where a group of quirkily dressed students sit
amidst quiet conversation next to a trash bin. In the center of the table there stands a tall
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pile of pale yellow plates, laced in remnants of balsamic vinaigrette and flax seeds. The
stack forms a small skyscraper. It hovers above a small cityscape of tea-filled drinking
jars resting serenely over a landscape of salad and beans. It is dinnertime. Twenty-year
old Alice wears a hat bedecked with propaganda pins, and radically voiced messages
scripted on patches that she has stitched onto her jacket.
Across the table Terence is wearing earth-toned clothes that are unashamedly ripped,
and marked with grease stains and dirt that reveal his devotion to bicycles and gardens.
They are overtly scavenging—the stack of plates is testament to the number of meals they
have finished for other people who would have otherwise thrown the food out. “Might as
well eat it-- it’s perfectly good food going into the trash when lots of energy went into
making it and getting it here to our school”, one of the students reflected, when I asked
her why he does it.
Undertaking a lifestyle aesthetic of intentional simplicity, and a ‘waste not, want
not’ mentality allows these students to overcome the normative middle-class American
taboo of eating someone else’s trash. Why do these college students care about eating
that extra portion of leftover beans from someone else’s plate so it does not land in the
trash? What is it that motivates them to wear politically radical messages on their clothes,
while other students around them seem content to wear clothes that say nothing overtly,
aside from brand name logos here and there?
The search for a fulfilling sense of self and a definable social identity consumes
the thoughts of many people—especially for those who are adjusting to life in their
twenties and thirties. After making the painful escape past the volatile cycle of
adolescence, the idea of entering into the ‘real world’ begins to sink into the mind. Yet
20
while many young people find themselves in this circumstance, their searches for
meaningful identities and modes of survival in the ‘real world’ vary dramatically. For
some young, middle-class Americans, success in the real world, and a satisfying
existence, means getting a stable job, and using the economic credit earned thereof to
engage and indulge in a variety of consumer choices. As Dick Hebdige writes,
Each ensemble has its place in an internal system of differences—the
conventional modes of sartorial discourse— which fit a corresponding
set of socially prescribed roles and options. These choices contain a
whole range of messages which are transmitted through the finely
graded distinctions of a number of interlocking sets—class, status, self
image, and attractiveness, etc. (Hebdige 1978)
Activist artists, however, choose not to partake in this socially prescribed set of
roles and options as they construct their identities and the actions that create their
lifestyle. Instead, they create ensembles that are created in socially responsible ways, and
are sewn and reassembled with appropriated symbols. The result is an overt identity that
symbolically reflects their holistic values and their willingness to avoid normalcy in favor
of more radical, and socially responsible existence.
Bricolage Aesthetics: The Style of Activist Subcultures
Within cultures, objects and meanings combine to create signs. Bricolage is a
method of creating new meanings by altering, reappropriating and subverting signs into
new contexts (Hebdige 1978). This often results in a distinct aesthetic that marks activist
artists as being a part of a radical subculture. It also allows them to relate to others within
their group, and expressively explore their ideals. On the following page is a photograph
that was taken by the gates of Ft. Benning at the 2006 SOA/WHINSEC2 In it, a man has
SOA/WHINSEC refers to “School of the Americas”, renamed the “West. Hemisphere Inst. for Security
Cooperation”, located in Ft. Benning, GA. Protestors gather annually with the attempt of shutting down this
2
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stenciled an image of a fist and the word
“protest” on the back of a white-collared
shirt. Even the phrase ‘white-collar” has
strong implications in our society, so by
altering this piece of clothing he is
subverting the image of formal, business
attire into a form of sartorial social commentary that reflects his beliefs.
Other forms of bricolage include the ideas of ‘adbusting’ and ‘subvertising’, both
of which refer to the bricolage appropriation of corporate logos into satirical contexts.
These contexts change the meaning of the logos, because they no longer serve to
advertise and support the brand name. Instead, these corporate logos become visually
associated with the corruption that activists see in their practices, such as perpetuating
substandard labor conditions for their outsourced workers, degrading the environment,
and encouraging a culture of
consumerism. Pictured at right is
the work of a design team called
1pointsize that has subverted the
logo of a globally recognized
corporate brand name by placing it
on a wall in India: one of the
largest sources of sweatshop labor in the world (1pointsize.com). This piece is part of a
series called “Brand Irony”, and emphasizes the disparities that exist between the
institution which trains Latin American militias that enforce various ‘security cooperation’ agendas in Latin
America, many of which have resulted in a large number of civilian deaths.
22
companies that advertise luxury items such as Nike Tennis Shoes or Visa Credit Cards
and the people who suffer low wages and poor living conditions in order to create these
goods.
“Adbusting” is a compelling form of bricolage activist art because unlike more
quirky, exclusive forms of ironic street art (that sometimes appeal only to inside members
of the group) the symbols that are ‘subvertised’ are widely-recognized and can be easily
understood by the wider society. Also, bricoleur style allows members of the activist art
subculture to display their values in a distinctive manner of dress that challenges preestablished notions of sartorial identity (Hebdige 1978).
One of the ways that activists find the materials that they use to make bricolage
forms of dress and street art is the practice of dumpstering3 to. Dumpstering, which is
also a method for finding food, is consistent with the values of activists, as it is a way of
gathering necessary materials without engaging in unnecessary economic transactions. In
other words, the beauty of trash is that it is free. Because it is free, the idea of selecting
materials is often left up to chance. However, this brings the idea of bricolage into play
again, as the ability to spontaneously create with the materials at hand allows radical
street art to be made with little expense.
One of my participants, a NY based street artist named Bettina, described how a
project her group was creating involved making sturdy signs that would pose as city
landmarks, but instead present alternative histories, such as stories of the Underground
Railroad. After browsing the dumpsters of several hardware stores, her group found more
than enough scrap steel to carry out their project. A blacksmith in the group welded the
3
This term refers to the act of searching through dumpsters to search for food, or other re-usable materials.
Often done at night, it is considered illegal trespassing of private property by most police.
23
steel using tools they already had, and created landmark stands that they were able to
paint and install. They looked so similar to the official landmarks of the city that they
were not discovered and removed by officials for six months.
Because of the sort of inventive, creative tactics activist art groups like Bettina’s
have been using, the street art movement has been steadily building momentum and
evolving to new levels. Having the mindset and values of a bricoleur allows activists to
have an aesthetically cohesive way of dressing and identifying themselves as part of the
subculture and to be able to subvert symbols of corporate media. Also, it allows them to
create these things in a way that is consistent with their values and keeps consumerism
and participation in the economic system at a minimum.
The Collective: an Organic, Homological Structure of Support
While bricolage describes a method of visual subversion that activist artists use to
create radical images and displayed identities, homology is a way of understanding how
all aspects of their identity—lifestyle, art, identity, activities and values—systemically
reflect are reflected in the subcultural whole. While traditional artists often draw
inspiration from the world around them, artists, and society at large, ultimately attribute
their work to themselves as individuals. This is apparent by the signature that
authenticates and identifies the image as having been created by an individual. Artists
such as Salvador Dalí and Picasso have gone to great lengths to furnish their names with
the artistic implications they have today. Yet activist artists have different intentions for
their work, and thus often make ‘tags’ or creative pseudonyms for themselves, that allow
them to keep their legal name, and their identity outside of street art, anonymous and
obscure.
24
Another way activist artists undermine their individual contributions to the
movement is by being a part of collective efforts Collectives can carry out the sort of
ambitious projects that take many hands to accomplish (and in the case of watching for
police, many eyes). Joining collective groups helps individuals to creatively collaborate
with others to imagine new ways of creating, as well as finding new ways of
understanding and interacting within the world. These collectives often draw upon
horizontal organizations of power, which may seem to be “lawless” to the outer society
as they often have no particular leader (Willis 1978). However, by looking at collectives
as being homological structures of support, it becomes apparent that a unified system of
aesthetic resonance pervades and connects all aspects of their lives.
The Beehive Collective exemplifies this notion of homology, as the members of
the beehive, (who aptly refer to themselves as ‘bees’), draw upon organic metaphors to
inspire all aspects of their work and the structure of their group. Their artwork draws very
heavily on visual representations of organic images juxtaposed with the man-made
symbols or practices they are raising awareness about. On the following page is an image
that features a series of scenes that portray common phenomena taking place across the
U.S. as a result of biotechnology, including suburbia, monoculture crops, car culture,
chain stores, manufactured desire, clear-cut forests, and nature as a museum, among
others. Beneath these are five contrasting scenes that depict ‘healthy’ things, such as
healthy ecosystems, communities, food, families and sustainable technology. It
encourages people to “resist the commodification of human life”, and boldly asks the
viewer, “does the homogenization of culture disturb you?”
25
Yet, the organic metaphors the Beehive Collective uses to express their social
views is not confined to the borders of the page. Instead it pervades all aspects of their
lives: they eat organic food, live simply, and organize their collective based around the
concepts of a hive, and the idea of leaf-cutter ants that work together to create something
much larger than any of the individuals could be by themselves. But this does not mean
they are homogenous; each “bee” has a unique role and identity within the collective, and
an individual understanding of what their work means to the collective ‘hive’.
To gain a better insight the lived
experiences of the bees, I interviewed
Bubba via e-mail, a bee who visited
Warren Wilson College during an
educational tour. I asked him about how
it was working with fellow bees, and if
there was a variety of opinions within it.
Bubba replied, “you'll find that when
working with a collective
of decentralized bees, from a variety of
backgrounds, the perspectives you
encounter to be as varied and distinct as
the bioregions we are all currently squatting in.” His reply is ripe with organic ways of
conceptualizing his interactions with the other bees, which reveals the homologous
resonance that underlies all aspects of their subculture (Willis 1978). It is in this way that
26
collectives form an essential source of support and power for the individuals that make up
the subculture of activist artists.
PART FIVE
|
AGITATING, EDUCATING, ORGANIZING: THE ART OF DISSENT
The Beehive Collective’s work serves as an excellent tool for public education,
but this is only one of several functions of activist art. Some activist art has not been
created to educate the public about a particular issue, but has instead been created to
actively occupy public space. This seemingly simple act has become a burgeoning
movement often referred to as ‘ radical street art. While graffiti is a well-known concept
that refers to text painted on walls, radical street art is a newer, more hybridized form of
occupying urban environments with active forms of visual media.
While graffiti is limited to text, what street art encompasses is far more open to
discovery and improvisation. It allows artists to combine a variety of bricolage media,
text and symbols to create multimedia images and sculpture that are pushing the
evolution of this form to remarkable levels of artistry and social commentary. Yet in spite
of the artistic expertise, and clever group collaborations that are going into the creation of
this art form however, it is still deemed illegal and is subject to buffing4 or removal by
officials at any moment in time.
Engaging the Passerby: Street Art as an Arbiter of Social Dialogue
Buffing is just one of many responses activist art evokes from the people who
view it. This is a response that results from what street artist Bettina Escauroza calls the
4
The act of covering over graffiti, it is usually an activity that is sponsored by city councils and
neighborhood watch groups for the purpose of ‘cleaning up’ urban/suburban areas from the street art that
they often characterize as being vandalism.
27
“scripting of public space5” (Escauriza 2007). Police officers and members of town
councils often generalize street art to be a form of vandalism, which may result in a
fearful association with gang graffiti. In a seminar she presented at NCOR titled
“Creative Disruptions of Space, Memory and Power”, Bettina stated,
Public space is highly scripted. As users of space, we are constantly
receiving cues on how to behave and make use of space. This scripting
occurs due to pressures from agents of repression (capitalism, the state,
sexism and so on), which in turn aid in the construction of identities. We
are interested in raising questions around how we comply and sometimes
reinforce the different ways that power emerges in public space, asking
what public space is anyway, and discussing strategies of how we might
resist these dominant and pervasive scripts on our behavior. (Escauroza
2007)
In order to avoid these “pervasive scripts on [their] behaviour”, activist artists
create work that directly defies these scripts. In the case of street art, the acts of
placing art on the walls of areas such as subways, abandoned buildings, billboards
and street signs is considered to be “deviant” or “radical” behavior, because it is
not a socially accepted or encouraged behavior. Art is often confined to galleries,
and activist artists directly threaten this idea by connecting art to the everyday
environments people occupy, as well as connecting the art to the everyday issues
that people find meaningful. Even the people who remove or buff this activist
street art are unwittingly engaging in a social dialogue by doing so—they are
reacting to the evocative nature of the art. Also, they are acting in a scripted way
by enforcing the perceived social norms that Bettina spoke of in her seminar, and
are thus giving in to “pressures from agents of repression” (Escauriza 2007).
5
Scripted actions or connotations are those which are socially accepted or encouraged, and often constitute
“normal” behavior, which contrasts “deviant” or “radical” behavior.
28
Yet not everyone who sees the art decides to cover it up—especially now
that the artistic forms street art is taking on are beginning to look very different
than the sorts of graffiti tags6 that community members see as vandalism. Radical
art forms are meant to not only be seen, but to also engage the people who walk
past to take notice of the space they are occupying, consider issues of social
justice and in some cases the art is created to merely bring a smile to one’s face,
and offer feelings of hope, acceptance, love or curiosity amidst the hustle and
bustle of the urban environment.
Defacing to Reveal: Rethinking the Commodification of Public Space
Activist street artists believe that scripted norms serve to control and dominate
public behavior, which, in turn, makes most people feel alienated from the others around
them. Activist art thus becomes a form of defacement, because it defies these socially
scripted norms (Taussig 1981). When art is unsolicited, and unpaid for, it becomes no
longer recognized as legitimate form of expression within our society. This is a way in
which capitalism reinforces itself, by forcing all aspects of society to be commodified—
even images.
Most of these images we see on a daily basis are sponsored advertisements. Often
they are located on sturdily built structures that exist only to put a sign that someone has
paid for in a highly visible space where others will see it. Because of how pervasive
advertisements are as we go about our daily lives, we often take these images for granted.
This is why activist artists are asking if the public should be forced to look at so many
6
Refers to an alias taken on by artists, examples include Banksy, Swoon, Betamaxxx, BO 130, Ambrio
29
advertisements in their everyday lives. Should public spaces be commodified and sold to
the wealthy corporations who can afford them?
French street artist Urbanblooz has used a minimalist wheat pasting 7 technique to
deface billboards throughout the city (pictured below) that very effectively ‘erases’
billboards, and provokes people to ask this very question, and ponder a society without
advertisements.
When you first see Urbanblooz’ street art, you do not initially realize you are
looking at a billboard. That is because Urbanblooz transforms billboards from being a
thing that obscures and fills space with a negative message into a border that carefully
frames a small fragment of the cityscape. His intent is relatively simple-- he merely
covers billboards with
pictures that reclaim the view
that the billboard once
obscured. By defacing, and
ultimately erasing these
billboards, Urbanblooz is
cleverly exposing the view
that these advertisements
obscure. He may be
proposing that the people who occupy public space should not be forced to have a
constant backdrop of advertisements, or challenging the viewer to take a fresh look at the
7
By heating equal portions of water and flour, one may create a very inexpensive adhesive that works to
adhere paper onto virtually any flat surface—aside from plastic and wood. Activist artists ‘wheat-paste’, or
‘poster-bomb’ their posters or prints in urban settings and often at night, as it is not legal. ‘Affinity groups’
often wheat-paste in teams to avoid arrest.
30
cityscape they occupy. In the pictures above, a tree and train wires become intentional
compositions that can be enjoyed in their own right, and that minimize the dominating
effects of billboards within public spaces.
By defining the norms of socially scripted spaces, activist artists use their work as
a way of altering the urban spaces people occupy, and attempt to provoke in them a fresh
experience of what it is to be in a city, as well as challenge the bounds of how we fill our
cities (Escauriza 2007). As the privatization and commodification of property increases,
and laws prevent activist art forms from legally occupying public space, street artists are
up against some pretty remarkable odds. Yet this does not discourage the artists
themselves—instead it seems to be strengthening their efforts, as they realize their work
is needed more than ever. The movement continues to evolve and produce clever new
ways of defacing commodified media, reclaiming city space, educating the public,
advocating social justice, and organizing with one another an attitude of hopeful
collective solidarity.
PART SIX
|
CREATIVELY NEGOTIATING SPACE AND POWER
As discussed in the last section, occupying and creatively disrupting urban
environments is a key function of activist art. So why is the simple act of using radical
art to occupy public space so important? According to Foucault’s theories on power
relations, “Freedom is not the converse of domination or power. It is merely an effect of
our capacity to challenge the effects of both; it is not ‘the end of domination’, but a revolt
within its practices… If there are relations of power throughout every social field it is
because power is everywhere” (Foucault in O’Leary 1997: 160).
31
Not only is power everywhere, but just as Antonio Gramsci (1971) believed hegemony
could never become a completed process, Foucault believes power is never fixed to any
one force, and is instead a form of social relation that may be negotiable by individuals
and groups within a society.
Reclaiming Public Space for the Public
This way of understanding power relations as a negotiable process gives a whole
new light to the effects of radical art in urban spaces. Corporate media may seem to have
the upper hand in dominating public space because they have an exponentially higher
budget, and are employing some of the brightest minds in the design industry to sell their
products. Yet activist street artists overcome their lack of economic agency with their
ability to organize, as well as the sharp-witted aesthetic homology that inspires their
grassroots creations. Activist artists engage in what Foucault called a “strategic game
between liberties” when they create art (which is often illegal without permission) upon
the surfaces of public spaces in, and thus navigate the power relations that surround that
space (1997:160).
Like a game, some radical street art is very playful in nature and negotiates power
relations in a fresh way that draws upon simple aesthetic forms to create powerful, and
positive images. Abandoned buildings become the large-scale canvases in the eyes of
street artists such as Blu (blublu.org). He has created hundreds of extremely large-scale
pictures, such as the one on the following page, where whimsically sized creatures and
humans interact in a way that reflects his feelings about power relations, the evolution of
human society towards consumerism and war, and even critiques on corporations such as
MTV.
32
Blu paints these large-scale street images in cities across the world. Sometimes he
is sponsored to paint these murals on bus stops, buildings and people’s homes, yet the
intention of his work is not to be marketed, make him famous, or earn him any more
money than he needs to keep making the art. Activist artists Sara and Marc Shiller, of the
Wooster Collective, gave a talk at the Conflux Festival in Brooklyn, and explained some
of the effects that artists like Blu are trying to achieve. They also remark about how much
of the art ends up being documented and placed on Internet. Blublu.org is the personal
website of Blu, which he has created to look like a journal, and records all of Blu’s works
before they get painted over or washed away by the elements. As Sara and Marc explain,
The works tap into our emotions and we get
that WTF ??? moment. The web cannot
recreate that experience but it's still
important to document the works on the
internet because not everybody gets the
opportunity to see one of Banksy's8 works.
Besides, half of the passersby might walk by
the work and totally ignore it. Creating
surprise and delight doesn't require a
particular skill or training, it's more a matter
of ingenuity and brillance. Once you leave a
piece in the streets, you don't own it any
more and have no control over it, it belongs
to the street. Besides all the pieces change
over time, because of the elements and the
weather. But that's part of the eco-system!
(Debatty 2006)
This humble perspective of street artists, by which they allow their work to be
enjoyed only for a moment, then faded, painted over, or destroyed by the elements of the
urban “ecosystem” they are created in, is one of the most powerful aspects of their work.
Most traditional artists go to great measures to make their art be of an archival quality. In
Banksy is the “pseudo-anonymous” identity of a London-based street artist whose reputation is well
known within the world of radical street art for his tromp l’oeil images, stencils, wheatpastes that feature
social, moral and political issues.
8
33
my own experience as a book-maker, I have been repeatedly told to use acid-free paper,
and to wash my hands before handling the books so that the oil does not slowly rot the
aesthetic content I am creating.
This forms a poignant
contrast to the ability of street artists
to surrender their work to the
elements of the street, and imposes
upon the sometimes pretentious, and
elitist notions that artists allow to
permeate their work. This humble
mindset allows activist artists to
negotiate power relations within
space in a way that does not
manipulate others into purchasing a
product, or to admiring their work
for generations to come.
Swoon, a New York based street artist creates complex visual portraits (see
above) of the people she sees everyday on the streets out of paper cut-outs and block
prints that take weeks to make. Contrary to the removed, ‘high’ nature that art often
takes, she uses technically masterful traditional art forms, but she applies them to the
street. She uses fragile newsprint papers, even found newspapers sometimes, and places
them on walls so that the everyday people of the city, who she is bringing attention to in
her portraits, can see them. The fact that her works fade, crinkle and peel is not a negative
34
thing to her. When interviewed by The Morning News, Swoon remarked "It’s funny the
way these decay, every time I see a photograph, I always expect to see that the
expressions are very different or not present anymore. It’s all part of the process."
(Sudbanthad 2007)
The paint will fade, and the wheat pastes will peal, but these street artists are
content with that. Instead of knowing their work will be preserved for posterity, bringing
moments of humor and happiness to an otherwise dilapidated urban space fulfills them,
as it is their way of empowering the people who happen to pass by to question the
practices and mindsets of their society.
Negotiating Alternative Histories
While there are many other ideas and art forms that activist artists are currently
pioneering, the last topic I will discuss in this ethnography is the ways in which artists
have recently started negotiating ideas about how history is created, and should be
remembered. As time passes on, moments that have occurred in the past inevitably
disappear. We are left with only memories and the material records of what has passed.
Red Hook, Brooklyn, is an area that has endured much gentrification lately, and the
people who have lived there longest are being marginalized because of their economic
status. Several street artists decided to collectively produce a “site-specific intervention”,
which is pictured at right. They used many layers of images and texts to create a
complex visual narrative that represents the many layers of historical narratives that the
people of Red Hook have experience throughout their lives there.
The first part of this project involved wheatpasting a street corner building (see
next page) with around 200 New York Times articles that have headlined the
35
neighborhood name “Red Hook” since 1851. Then they used the content of the articles to
inspire a layer of line-illustrations that they painted in bold black lines over the articles.
‘Bubbles’ have been created to feature the many lived experiences of the community, and
they vary in size, according to the importance or prevalence of the experiences. Street
artist Iminent Disaster created a blog on Visualresistance.org to record this project, where
he reflects,
By looking at the tensions between historical record and individual memory, we
can reflect upon on the role of our imaginations and come to a deeper awareness
of our potential to shape the identity of our communities through our lived
experiences within them. Red Hook has been at the center of many discourses
about gentrification, but during these expositions, the identity of the community is
most often quantified through property values and business development. By
shifting the emphasis of identity to lived experience instead of economic
productivity; the average person acquires a position capable of challenging the
dominant power structures, even with limited economic means. (Iminent Disaster
2007)
By taking an active role in commemorating and exploring what Bakhtin referred
to as a “novelized past” (1981: 16), these activist artists are using their radical visual
narratives to actively negotiate power relations in a way that legitimizes and celebrates
the experiences of the people that live in the community of Red Hook. While the news
paper histories serve as a basis for their installation, they fade into the background while
the more important issues—the lived
experiences of the community
members—become highlighted in the
forefront by the black line drawings.
This way of understanding
power relations as a negotiable process
36
gives a whole new light to effects of radical art in urban spaces. Corporate media
producers may seem to have the upper hand in dominating public space because they
have an exponentially higher budget, and are employing some of the brightest minds in
the design industry to sell their products, yet activist street artists overcome their lack of
economic agency with their ability to organize, as well as the sharp-witted aesthetic
homology that inspires their grassroots creations. Also, activists effectively negotiate
alternative histories that allow non-elite versions of history to be told. This takes the form
of unique narratives—often expressed through radical street art— that focus on the
histories that are important and relevant to the lived experience of a community, rather
than events based around war, economic exchange and an epic past that is distanced from
the present experiences of society.
PART SEVEN
|
CONCLUSION
Activist artists have homologically structured aesthetic values that are reflected in
every aspect of their work and lifestyle. These values allow them to inventively
collaborate with one another in collectives, that serve to support and aid them as they
undertake the sometimes risky process of creating radical (and in most cases illegal)
street art. Also, it allows them to have a coherent sense of identity and purpose in a world
that they feel needs to change. In order to do so, activists draw upon techniques such as
wheat pasting, stencils and other forms that incorporate a bricolage sense of style with
which they incorporate into their art new ways of thinking, and enacting change in the
world. By engaging and challenging the viewers of their art, activist street artists seek to
impose upon the lives of those who walk by, and perhaps cause them to think twice about
how they interact with one another in society. In urban spaces, where people have little
37
control over the environment around them, activist street art allows individuals and
groups to take action and draw upon the power that exists around them to create a more
beautiful, meaningful place for the people who pass through the space to live their
everyday lives.
___________________
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bakhtin, Mikhail
1981 The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Benjamin, Walter
1968 Illuminations. New York: Schocken Books.
Burgess, Joel
2007 Rechanneling Graffiti Artists. Sunday, April 20, 2007. Asheville Citizen
Times.
Gramsci, Antonio.
1971 Selections from the Prison Notebooks. New York: International Publishers.
Hundertmark, Christian
2003 The Art of Rebellion. Publikat: Handels.
Hundertmark, Christian
2007 The Art of Rebellion 2. Publikat: Handels.
Imminent Disaster
2007 Red Hook: An Exploration of Identities. Posted 29 March, 2007 on Visual
Resistance News. <http://visualresistance.org/wordpress/2007/03/29/redhook-an-exploration-of-identities/>.
Escauriza, Bettina and Greenwald, Dara
2007 Creative Disruptions of Space. Transcribed NCOR Conference Seminar.
Washington DC.
Foucault, Michel
38
1966 The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. New York:
Random House
Hebdige, Dick
1979 The Style of Culture. In The Subcultures Reader. Sarah Thornton and Ken
Gelder, eds. London and New York: Routledge.
O’Leary
2002 Foucault and the Art of Ethics. London: Continuum
Taussig, Michael
1999 Defacement: Public Secrecy and the Labor of the Negative. Stanford:
Stanford Press.
Sim, Stuart
1992 Beyond Aesthetics: Confrontations with Post-structuralism and
Postmodernism. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Sudbanthad, Pitchaya
2007 Paper Faces, Paper Cities: an Interview with Swoon. 15 May 2007. The
Morning News. <http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/galleries
/paper_faces_paper_cities/>.
Thornton, Sarah and Gelder, Ken, Ed.
1997 The Subcultures Reader. London and New York: Routledge.
Debatty, Régine
2006 Wooster Collective’s Talk at Conflux. 25 September 2006. <http://www.wemake-money-not-art.com/archives/008960.php>.
INDEX OF IMAGES
Title Page— Stencil:“Society Gets the Kind of Vandalism it Deserves”, Anonymous
Page 12—Highway Underpass, by Blu [Blublu.com]
Page 14—Pipeline Polar Bear Detail, by the Beehive Collective
Page 17—Screenshot from the Beehive Collective Website
Page 22—SOA/WHINSEC Protestor, Photography by Author
Page 22—Brand Irony Series: Just Do It, By 1pointsize.com
Page 26—Resist Biotechnology, By The Beehive Collective
Page 30—Erased Billboards, by Urbanblooz
Page 33—Image of Bull-headed Man, By Blu
39
GLOSSARY OF TERMS AND TAGS
Activist Art: This is the predominant term I have used to describe street art made by
activists throughout this paper, and includes (but is scarcely limited to): wheat pasting,
stenciling, graffiti, post-graffiti, stickers, murals, etc. An extended form of this includes
more sartorial forms of advocacy, which include patches, pins, and other forms of activist
texts that mark the hats, jackets and other articles of clothing that some activists wear.
Adbusting: Defacing advertisements is a form of ‘direct action’, which often involves
tagging billboards or other ads, or replacing them with satirical reappropriations of text
and images. For example, one artist uses red spray paint on billboards that feature
scantily-clad models to make their eyes bleed, or other spray paint to give them clothes,
or masks.
Affinity Groups: Small groups of activists (often 3-10 people) who gather to carry out
‘direct actions’, including wheat-pasting and graffiti projects. The groups work together
to watch for police, as well as support one another in various ways in the collective
manner activist artists have grown to value as a direct opposition to the individualizing,
alienating nature of what they call ‘mainstream narratives’.
Alternative Histories: This term refers to the reclamation of history from what one
woman called the ‘mainstream narratives’ that have been predominantly taught in
American classrooms for the past fifty years. By reclaiming history, individuals and
groups may honor and remember the history that is relevant and meaningful to them.
Bad Guys: This is a somewhat playful way of labeling political individuals, advertisers,
and corporations who have committed socially unjust and/or environmentally
unsustainable acts for economic or political gain. Often the ersatz protagonists of activist
art, these organizations and figures motivate activists to take ‘direct action’ and to put up
a ‘resistance’ against them.
Bees, The: Reflecting upon the organic, collective qualities of the tiny insects, the
Beehive Collective members call themselves ‘bees’, even taking on aliases such as
“Bubba Bee” and “Emma Bee” (my participants). The members of this collective are
spread, like bees, throughout the Americas, and the members I interviewed used the
beehive metaphor constantly when explaining the organization of the group.
Bricolage: Based on the French word bricoleur, roughly translating to the concept of
‘do-it-yourself’, it refers to the resourceful, creativity that one may draw upon to create or
design new things out of the objects and images one is surrounded by. Derrida, LeviStrauss and eventually Dick Hebdige each incorporated the idea this word conveys into
their theories. Derrida applied the term to the concept of academic discourse “If one calls
bricolage the necessity of borrowing one's concept from the text of a heritage which is
more or less coherent or ruined, it must be said that every discourse is bricoleur."
(Derrida 1978)
Built Environment, The: While those trained in the Fine Arts often choose to create
their art on stretched canvas and artist paper, this term refers to the planes and forms of
urban/suburban terrain that street artists choose to stencil, tag, and paste upon.
Buffing: The act of covering over graffiti, it is usually an activity that is sponsored by
city councils and neighborhood watch groups for the purpose of ‘cleaning up’
urban/suburban areas from the street art that they often characterize as being vandalism.
Culture Jamming: altering media produced by corporations in such a way as to cause
observers of this media to question it. Example: ‘Artresting’ female models portrayed in
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billboards by spray painting red marks on their bodies, until it drips red giving the
appearance of blood.
Direct Action: True to the ‘dynamic’ nature of activists, that contrasts the ‘passive’
qualities of the government, carrying out direct actions often occupies the weekends and
free time of devoted activists. The term refers to the idea of creating immediate change to
counter the social/environmental problems they encounter in the world, forms include
strikes, sit-ins, demonstrations/protests, guerilla warfare, establishing radical collectives
and centers, and the creation of dynamic forms of activist art. This contrasts the term
‘indirect action’, which pursues a longer-term process of change via elections, ‘letter
writing’ to political or corporate figures, boycotting certain brands, etc.
Dumpstering: This term refers to the act of searching through dumpsters to search for
food, or other re-usable materials. Often done at night, it is considered illegal trespassing
of private property by most police.
Emo: Based on the music genre of the same name, this term is often used emically to
refer to a style of accoutrement that is characterized by dark colors, tight-fitting pants,
sweatshirts, dark-rimmed glasses, and haircuts that feature side-swept bangs, sometimes
dyed black or with stripes of bleaching, reds, or other dark colors.
Graffiti: Aesthetically stylized script written on urban surfaces, such as brick walls,
lamp-posts, bathroom stalls, bridges, vehicles, etc. One of my participants who is a
Graffiti artist was very concerned that I made note that graffiti refers only to writing, and
when it is merely images, it is called ‘post-graffiti’. However, variations on this definition
likely exist, as the normalization of terms for a long period of time often meets resistance
and redefinition.
Guerilla Art: One of the many ways of referring to what I call ‘activist art’ throughout
my paper, it emphasizes the underground, collective nature of these aesthetic forms.
Homeland Security Blanket: One of the many new media sculptures of Amy
Franceschini, this piece exemplifies the witty political commentaries that are often woven
into the creations of activist artists.
Indirect Action: A more passive form of political movement than ‘direct action’,
indirect often consists of seeking political reform or change through voting new elected
officials, supporting bills, boycotting products, and other forms of change that do not
produce short term effects.
Mural: A large-scale image that is usually painted on walls or ceilings, murals are a
generally accepted form of public art. Famous muralists include Diego Rivera, and
oftentimes urban fences or edifices are painted thusly due to city empowerment
programs. Oftentimes, political or social justice issues may be woven into this form of
urban art, varying from AIDS awareness to decrying the overpowering voice of the
media.
New Media Art: This refers to art that has been created with the help of multimedia,
technological devises, such as the Internet, or programming. The ability for creating
interactive, and collectively collaborated forms of art and presentations makes this an
popular new form of design for the technologically savvy breed of activist artist—
especially those who are increasingly moving their activism into the online sphere.
Poster Art: Poster art has been a pervasive form of propaganda media in virtually every
society that has had some form of paper. Everyone from Marx, to advertisers for the
Barnum & Bailey circus has relied on mass-produced posters to convey messages of all
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sorts. In spite of the increasing technologies of the current day, posters are still a reliable,
and simple form of spreading ideas, and for activists, ‘educating, agitating, and
organizing’.
Post-Graffiti: While the nature of this word seems to resist concrete definition, postgraffiti refers to guerilla street art that has pushed the concept of graffiti beyond the
concept of being a merely vandalizing word, and instead presenting a more politically
loaded message and purpose. Post-graffiti is not ‘trapped’ on a canvas, rather, it is created
to become a mass-produced simulacra, that may be wheat-pasted on the built terrain.
Stencil: Easily made by cutting an image out of cardboard, plastic, or any flat, sliceable
surface, stencils are held up to walls, spray painted over, and are an easy way to quickly
render a visually complex and striking image onto the urban terrain. Some contain words
and images—often somewhat cryptic messages—while others are merely images that
either speak for themselves, or present an ironic image that may look meaningless to
outsiders.
Street Installation: This refers to pieces of art that are installed in the urban
environment. Usually they are sculptural, and dimensional in form. For example, Bettina
and Dara installed landmarks in their city that honored black historical figures and
alternative histories that mimicked the style of landmarks endorsed by the City of Troy,
NY.
Subvertising: Similar to the term ‘adbusting’, this term refers to subverting the messages
of advertisements to point out the socially unjust or economically selfish practices of
various corporations. Brand logos are often altered, or satirical advertisements may be
made and worn as clothing, made into clipart, stickers, stencils, and any form the artist
can imagine.
Tag: alias taken on by artists, examples include Banksy, Swoon, Shepard Fairey,
Betamaxxx, BO 130, Ambrio, Scout, OXO OVO, HNT, Ekosystem, Space Invador and
The Flower Guy.
Tagging: emic term for ‘leaving your mark”, or writing your tag in a place you go.
Wheat-pasting: By heating equal portions of water and flour, one may create a very
inexpensive adhesive that resembles wallpaper paste, and is sometimes called ‘Marxist
glue’. It has been used for ages to adhere paper onto virtually any flat surface—aside
from plastic and wood. Activist artists ‘wheat-paste’, or ‘poster-bomb’ their posters or
prints in urban settings and often at night, as it is not legal. ‘Affinity groups’ often wheatpaste in teams to avoid arrest.
Wooster Collective: is an street art website that is updated on a regular basis. It is
dedicated to showcasing and celebrating ephemeral art placed on streets in cities around
the world. Updated by Marc and Sara Schiller, the site also offers podcasting with music
and interviews featuring street artists.
Zine: A small-scale, privately-created publication, zines have no typical page length and
can feature a variety of appropriated or original texts and images. In the activist art world,
zines are very popular ways to present manifestos, theories, or do-it-yourself guides.
Doris is a popular zine based out of Asheville that discusses issues of feminism and
sexual violence, while other examples of activist zines include Do-It-Yourself
Gynecology, Towards a Less Fucked Up World: Anarchism and Sobriety, and the “T”
word: pass the mission about being transgendered.
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GLOSSARY OF ACTIVIST ART WEBSITES
ATLASMAGAZINE.COM | A collective venture of participant Amy Franceschini
BEAUTIFULDECAY.COM | Beautiful/Decay: An Anthology of Radical Art Galleries
BEEHIVECOLLECTIVE.ORG | A Virtual Hive of the Beehive Collective
FUTUREFARMERS.ORG | A collective venture of participant Amy Franceschini
JUSTSEEDS.ORG | Just Seeds Art Collective (created by participant Josh MacPhee)
ORGANIZEDRESISTANCE.ORG | Informational Website for NCOR Conference
SOAW.ORG | School of the Americas Watch
STENCILARCHIVE.ORG | A Comprehensive Archive for Stencil Art
STREETARTWORKERS.ORG | Network of Street Art Workers
STREETSY.COM | Street Art Uploaded Daily
URBAN-ART.INFO | A Virtual Gathering of Street Arts
VISUALRESISTANCE.ORG | A gathering of activist art blogs, photos, artist bios, etc.
WOOSTERCOLLECTIVE.ORG | The Wooster Collective
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