h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A particular favourite of mine involved a large rock formation in the Australian outback, which local youths used as their personal (often offensive) message board. One bright summer morning the locals woke to find, in huge 20 ft lettering, the message:

"Please stop writing on my rocks.
- GOD"

The best bit of graffitti I ever saw was "USA" written in letters about 20 feet (7 meters) tall in a drainage creek in the city I used to live in. Each letter was colored in red, white, and blue, fading from one color to the next from top to bottom. The whole thing was done so that the letters would look as though they were made of shiny metal, a hard trick considering it was actually spraypaint on concrete. The whole thing was probably 20 feet tall by 30 feet wide (7x10 meters). This artistic masterpiece stood unmolested for several years before finally being painted over by some city official who didn't recognize what a collasal piece of patriotic art it was.

I've seen a lot of noteworthy graffitti since then, notably a 10"x6" (3x2 meter) castle with a dragon wrapped around it, but none have measured up to this.

On another note, nearly all noteworthy graffiti I've seen was done in various concrete drainage systems. Perhaps this is the only "canvas" large enough?

We don't get much graffiti here in minnisota

On Darwin point (near Sydney) there is a post with the following graffitto:
"I am Threebold Goddy and I am a mighty pirate!"

I have never worked out what it means though

I've always considered graffiti to be terribly disrespectful of property. i wouldn't mind if artists would get permission and make something other than gang symbols, but so many times that's all it is. i disagree respectfully with the article- most graffiti is not art, it is damaging property. i do agree, however, that there are beautiful paintings done by a very few graffiti artists.
Did I take a stand in all that I just said? I am not sure...

What you say is true. However, a quick point: all graffiti is property damage because there is no property that allows graffiti. I know of only one case of a public area where garffiti was legalized, and that was the skatepark in the city where I used to live. The rules were set down: no gang symbols, nothing offensive to anyone. Suprisingly, the rules were never broken as long as I lived there, and there was actually a *drop* in tagging elsewhere in the city. Perhaps all we need is a few areas set aside for graffiti artists.

That is actually what I was referring to-- either places set aside for graffiti, or artists "contracted" to do nice murals, or something of the sort. Seems like it would work, and it wouldn't be an eyesore in other places.

Righto! Maybe we should do something about this... start a petition or something.

So like a world-wide petition? Who would we send it to? Maybe country leaders. That might work.

I think, in most cases, graffiti (both the tags and the actual artwork) is meant to be antiestablishment. Which I can appreciate.

Well I wish there was a way for them to be antiestablishment without defacing public property.

Something like that (world leaders). Email petitions usually work pretty well for this sort of thing, and they're easy to start.

What an interesting idea! I might work one up!

They actually don't work. If you tell the tenth person to send it to an address - and every person sends it to two people (which is way lower than the actual number) you will get 1024 emails soon enough, and those numbers are way lower than actual. And worse, many will have five or six or seven (or, say, three hundred) of the same names. Governments tend to ignore them.

Only because they are badly organized. A real petition requires at least city, state/province, and country for each name if not full street address. (of course, most people don't like putting their full address on a chain letter so this can probably be dropped) Also, a better length to wait to send it is more like 500+ up to maybe 1,000 signatures, which actually makes a shorter email than you'd think as long as people actually delete all the message trail at the top. On top of that, it should be sent by snail mail, not email, and possibly even sent to a central organizer for sorting before sending it to anyone important. These things can be done.

ich tu es einfach mal "in deutsch" (perhaps you´ll find a babelfish for that ;---() ): ihr wollt nur diejenigen kontrollieren, die sich nicht kontrollieren lassen - vor denen habt ihr angst, das ist alles. wahre graffiti-artists lassen sich nicht sagen, wohin sie malen sollen und schon gar nicht für wen. komischerweise findet ihr diejenigen graffiti am schönsten, die an "illegalen" orten gesprüht wurden - komisch, gell?! ganz davon abgesehen, daß eigentum diebstahl ist, solltet ihr euch einmal überlegen, wie "eigentum" überhaupt zu stande kommt. irgendwo in diesem system von "mein und dein" ist immer unterdrückung anwesend - und wenn dagegen "rebelliert" wird (womit ich nicht sagen will, daß alle maler und malerinnen "rebellieren" - es gibt genug yuppi-maler, die einfach nur aus lauter langeweile "malen" (meistens sind diese dann auch noch ziemlich gut)), macht ihr euch in die hose und jammert was von "sachbeschädigung". GÄHN!
ich wünsche noch ein schönes weiteres unbeschädigtes leben.
michael b. posting in m.korsakov´s site...

I think the word "damaging" is a bit strong - after all nothing gets broken, just embellished. Everything still works afterwards, people keep dry, there are no holes in the roof or power cuts caused by it. I think it just emphasises the ephemeral quality of modern buildings and their pointless designs. As long as buildings which have really been designed, churches, mosques, synagogues for example - don't get defaced, I think graffitti is well justified in many cases.

My favourite has always been "When God made man she was only practising" but that's rather out of date now. I haven't seen it myself (except as a car sticker) but in the 70's people started publishing books of them and I saw it in there. Anyone know what those books were called?

I think I'll translate this as it does say quite a lot. Absolutely without comment. I don't say I agree.

All in all though, really it is a lost cause, this petition lark. As far as I know, some places do provide railcars or walls for writing, and of course, spraying is illegal anywhere, so they'd have to improve methods of prevention and catching people red-handed - and we know where that would lead. Obviously the fun of spraying is the danger of getting caught. Theory: perhaps the artists are at their best with the adrenalin up because of fear of getting caught.

OK folks here is the translation:

You just want to have control over people who will not let themselves be controlled. You're scared of them, that's all. True graffiti artists won't be told where to paint and certainly not who they're to do it for.

Funnily enough, you find graffiti at its most beautiful when sprayed in places where it's illegal.

Regardless of the the fact that possession is theft (sic), you really ought to think about how possession comes to be. Somewhere in this system with its "yours" and "mine", some form of suppression is always involved. And when sprayers "rebel" against this (I don't mean that all sprayers are "rebelling" - there are enough yuppie sprayers doing it from boredom, these are usually quite good) you just shit your pants and moan about "damage". Y A W N - boring....

Comment to author. Gott Michael das sind aber verschachtelte Sätze. Und worauf Du hinaus willst, weiß ich auch nicht genau. Ich geh mir aber erst mal den Arsch abwischen