Style Wars

In this video, the idea of the train tunnels under the city being explored as “tombs” was present. It was said that before, graffiti was something that was not done by many. The tunnels under the city have a lot of history to them. They have rooms that were once the first rooms of the train-line. Now, the art that is down there is also becoming a part of the city’s history. It will be part of the city forever, and the graffiti world is growing with the city. What was once the secret of graffiti writing, is now becoming something that a lot of people are doing. Graffiti writers go out into the train yards, and are a small person in the midst of the enormity of the trains. Once they smell the trains however, they become someone among the trains trying to produce something.

The hip-hop culture “bombs” the city by trying to spread their names from one side of the city to the other. They aren’t doing it for the acclaim of the general public but for the recognition they receive from their fellow writers. They are creating an immortality for themselves in their art. They do it for themselves, and in doing so, they are reclaiming a power for themselves and remapping the city with their art. The kids that are break dancing are creating a language of their own. A language that the people around them can understand, a language that allows them to use their creativity in a way that they want, and a language that allows them to do something that they view is productive when a large portion of people that surround them are smoking weed instead.

I was torn when I was asked if tagging was an attempt at ownership. As with most art, I think that different people have different reasons for wanting to produce it. For some people it seems to be away to attempt to claim ownership over the city. To show that this is their city, and like everyone else living their they should be allowed to express themselves. I even thought that the taggers had a good point when the train official spoke out against them saying what they were doing was wrong. They said that their art is constantly being washed off causing it to look bad, but if the officials were to allow them to paint a few cars and leave it, they would see that it is actually an art form. It seems as though others seem to be trying to prove something more than ownership. One man in the video seemed to be trying to prove that he was capable, trying to prove his worth, just because he didn’t have an arm didn’t mean that he was unable to produce an eye opening work.

At one point in the film, the man who was missing his arm was talking about how he lost his arm. He then said, “Yeah I vandalism, but I did something to make your eyes open up, right? So what are you talking about it for?” I think he made a good point. If he can create something that can be seen as beautiful or captivating to an audience why does it matter how he lost his arm, or that he is missing an arm at all. I also thought that it was interesting that he saw a group of TV people filming his art, and when he asked them if they would believe that he created it they said that he couldn’t because he only had one arm. I think that this shows that he was trying to do something more than just create a name for himself. It seems to me that he is trying to show the world, or at least the people that know who his is, that he can create astounding tags. His lack of an arm is of no matter.

I think the fact that the majority of the graffiti writers in this film saw their work as art was shown when they started talking about the man that called himself “Cap.” It was shown here that the idea of layout, color, and style are thought of by these artists. They create a style of their own, not always making straight letters, including arrows of their own (arrows going through the whole word, arrows stemming off a letter), creating camouflage and 3D letters. They see their pieces as art, and Cap had referred to one of the walls as a beautiful wall. What Cap did was try and destroy the beauty of the pieces that had been created because of the name that created them. In a place where most of the artists are focusing on quality, he was focused on quantity. He wasn’t focused on spending time on formatting or color, he was simply focused on destroying the art that people he didn’t like had created. I think that the fact that the majority of the taggers were focused on quality rather than quality (though most of them do create in a large quantity) shows that they are creating a form of art. It isn’t intended as a form of disobedience as much as a form of expression and creation.

When the art is created on a canvas and placed on a canvas, I think that it changes the general aesthetic of the artwork. When it is placed in a public forum, the artists spoke about how they weren’t creating their tags for city wide acclaim but for themselves and the taggers that knew their name. When the work is taken out of that sphere, and people start getting paid for what they create, I think that the lines of why it was being created get blurred. I think that this can often be said of a lot of art. If it was originally being created for nothing more than a personal reason, and then someone starts getting paid to create it, I think the drive to create and the art can often become changed.