Graffiti As A Resistance Culture?

[Real8]

I'm about to write an essay in my popular culture class and wanted to test waters about a few topics before I start research.

My question or Thesis inregards to graffiti is

In a hegemonic society, how does graffiti fit the resistance culture catagory? How has the culture been sanatized and sold back to the masses?

I am refering to the begining of the culture when there was a social or political purpose to writing. Was there a purpose? Is modern day graffiti comercialized for profit and reformed from what it was to something more accpetable to the rest of society? Or do I have a misconception of what it was and is?

If anyone could provide me with some leads to some concrete information and documention, in the form of books, movies, web and anyother media it would be greatly apprectiated.

[pSYKAOz]

i forgot who said it but it was in the film style wars i think... a writer was saying that in south america they used hiphop and graff as a way of expressing their revolt and as a more passive and less violent form of revolution, and he was saying how in the usa it never quite made it to that stage b4 getting mediatized and sold out pretty much.

personnaly i do it abit as a form of rebellion, since the ones who it really costs is the ones in power and they cant do nething about it. but from there to thinking im actually doing something as worthy as promoting a cause... dont think so hehe

[panic]

Originally posted by Real8@Oct 19 2004, 10:51 AM
In a hegemonic society, how does graffiti fit the resistance culture catagory? How has the culture been sanatized and sold back to the masses?

-First off, whats hegemonic? and whats "resistance culture catagory"?

I am refering to the begining of the culture when there was a social or political purpose to writing. Was there a purpose? Is modern day graffiti comercialized for profit and reformed from what it was to something more accpetable to the rest of society? Or do I have a misconception of what it was and is?

- There has always been a social/political purpose in what we do, its just not always there. the majority of the time we write because we enjoy it or because its a habit, we ususally have no pre-concieved idea beyond a sketch or some colours, unless of coarse there is an event which impacts our lives personally, like the arrest of a freind (see any peice with FREE ___), social injustice, a terrible crime (the wall painted for a small girl who was brutally murdered in toronto, who's name escapes me at this time), war (theres a big war section on Artcrimes). The original purpose was creative expression, and to some extent to make ones self a "celeberty". (we all strive to be recognized in some way). but mainly it was probly expression, but i was not around when this started. try asking SEEN, he has a website which you could contact him through.
- As for modern day graffiti, its is essentally the same, but it nolonger exists within the regular boundries people have set (i.e, poor dis-infranchised minorities living in ghetto areas). graffiti exists everywere, from the slums to the suburbs, from the legal or the illegal. "Is modern day graffiti comercialized for profit and reformed from what it was to something more accpetable to the rest of society?" No and yes, there are writers who commercial work and make a living off it, but there are also the gutter writers who strive off the destruction of property, probly even more so now that it is becoming more and more difficult to stand out against the mass of writers out there today. maclaim crew vs nsf crew?

- To tell you if you have some misconceptions, you would have to let us know what your concept of new, and old graffiti is, because we cannot desifer such things from your questioning.

If anyone could provide me with some leads to some concrete information and documention, in the form of books, movies, web and anyother media it would be greatly apprectiated.

-Artcrimes.com is wealth of information regarding all things in graffiti. Interviews can be found on almost every site. print them out and give them a good read, there awsome for quoting, and since the writers are graffiti in a sence, you can gleam some good info from them. you teacher loves quotes. - - Videos like "style wars", "wild style", and a few others are pretty good. I havnt watched much in the way of graffiti videos, but i own those two and the cope2 video, its good as well, but theres more action then explination so it may not be what your looking for. As for books, you probly wont beable to rent any graffiti books from a library, so the store section here would be your best bet, or maybe some freinds who write, who wouldnt mind splitting the cost?
yes

[Kayone707]

Originally posted by pSYKAOz@Oct 19 2004, 10:22 AM
i forgot who said it but it was in the film style wars i think... a writer was saying that in south america they used hiphop and graff as a way of expressing their revolt and as a more passive and less violent form of revolution, and he was saying how in the usa it never quite made it to that stage b4 getting mediatized and sold out pretty much.

personnaly i do it abit as a form of rebellion, since the ones who it really costs is the ones in power and they cant do nething about it. but from there to thinking im actually doing something as worthy as promoting a cause... dont think so hehe
i dident even read the question... but im style warz it said that in So.America they use hip-hop kinda like a polotical movement, thats what American hip-hop started out as but other influences such as guns/gangs/drugs.etc. got involved. and that ruined what hip-hop could have become...


*if theres spellin errors i just woke up like 3 min ago. eyes still blurry.

[nybomber]

what the fuck is hegemonic but i guess it sound good except its spelled sanitized not sanatized

[Thrillhouse]

artcrimes.com

it's all sorts of articles about this. check it out.

[Real8]

Originally posted by nybomber@Oct 19 2004, 03:06 PM
what the fuck is hegemonic but i guess it sound good except its spelled sanitized not sanatized
Thanks. I am a really bad speller.
A hgemonic society is a society built on the Hegemony theory.
Hegemony theory was produced by some guy named Gramsci (pronounced gram-she)
Hegemony, without going into great detail, is explaning the ballance between the elite (coporations, government, etc.) and the masses (regular people,the working class) in the the grand scheme of production and consumption of popular culture.

It is an extention of Marx's theory, or explaning why Marx's theory didn't pan out.



I am a writer myself and have been doing so for the last 4 years. I personaly have no concrete purpose for writing other than the art it self. But when I do write I try and promote a message of peace. Call it stupid, but it's better than "Bang bang, Bling Bling, I'ma rob your shit cause you lined me!!"
I don't read much about the culture or how it grew up so I thought I'd ask some internet cats some advice, and hoped it would maybe start a good thread conversation.

[Real8]

oh.....and the Resistance group are the people who try to expose the elites motives and actions, as well as not buying into what is mass consumed and produced by the masses and the elite.

I hope that gives everyone an Idea of what I'm talking about....I only had just learned of these ideas recently in school.

[halo]

these are very good questions.........I couldnt tell you though, but I'm happy someone is looking at graffiti at different angles..... I love convos lik this, and I hope we can get some heated descusion on this....good job man! +1 rep point 4 you!

[Fait]

yea

[FOEone]

im not resisting anything. and if i am, im not using graffiti as a means to resist.

[shyone]

i just do it so i dont get board, or go into drugs or anyfing.. apart from the fact its fun and it looks good. when i am an angry mood then it does help to carm me down

[Ume]

same as shyone, my counciler said its a way of calming me down and changing my mood instead of using prozac or whatever :unsure:

[xylene hug]

will this topic ever reach 2 pages???? :lol:

[Lazer]

with this post it will.......*i hope* :P


EDIT: damnit :(

[vegimite on toast]

With mine?:D

[vegimite on toast]

YAY!! :D

[xylene hug]

i just like to crush the streets,

[toxus]

is this topic ever going to get closed

[xENDOx]

i dont think this should be closed, its letting people express their ideas on this culture

[Havoc411]

graff calms my nerves

[SoldAsFreedom]

I guess you really could use it as a resistance effort. Putting up a political slogan against what the common masses think can change something. It can change how people think. Like a kid who's always heard nothing but the media and other right-wing type efforts can see something like that and it can change the way he or she thinks. Other people just do graffiti not as a form of resistance but for other things.

[Havoc411]

is this political enough?
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v311/Havoc411/bushbilboard.jpg

[infer one]

haha

[MitNGEK]

what the hell is hegemonic society

[infer one]

its when the community all gets together and have a giant orgy

[FadeProof]

is it?

[Vulture]

Originally posted by Real8@Oct 19 2004, 10:51 AM
I'm about to write an essay in my popular culture class and wanted to test waters about a few topics before I start research.

My question or Thesis inregards to graffiti is

In a hegemonic society, how does graffiti fit the resistance culture catagory? How has the culture been sanatized and sold back to the masses?

I am refering to the begining of the culture when there was a social or political purpose to writing. Was there a purpose? Is modern day graffiti comercialized for profit and reformed from what it was to something more accpetable to the rest of society? Or do I have a misconception of what it was and is?

If anyone could provide me with some leads to some concrete information and documention, in the form of books, movies, web and anyother media it would be greatly apprectiated.
"NERD ALERT!"- Austin Powers

playin

[rezwan]

Originally posted by Kayone707+Oct 19 2004, 02:08 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Kayone707 @ Oct 19 2004, 02:08 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-pSYKAOz@Oct 19 2004, 10:22 AM
i forgot who said it but it was in the film style wars i think... a writer was saying that in south america they used hiphop and graff as a way of expressing their revolt and as a more passive and less violent form of revolution, and he was saying how in the usa it never quite made it to that stage b4 getting mediatized and sold out pretty much.

personnaly i do it abit as a form of rebellion, since the ones who it really costs is the ones in power and they cant do nething about it. but from there to thinking im actually doing something as worthy as promoting a cause... dont think so hehe
i dident even read the question... but im style warz it said that in So.America they use hip-hop kinda like a polotical movement, thats what American hip-hop started out as but other influences such as guns/gangs/drugs.etc. got involved. and that ruined what hip-hop could have become...


*if theres spellin errors i just woke up like 3 min ago. eyes still blurry. [/b][/quote]
the government.

"ethnic cleansing" operations

they were very afraid of the culture at first, so they did what they could to make it beneficial to them (ie:not beneficial to you) and distorted its general image a LOT. diamonds and guns and expensive cars and a large wardrobe of expensive clothes that still make you look low-class at least to most legal employers, and thinking of women as prostitutes that will only fuck you if you have money, are all ways to take what you couldve had away from you and to distract you from the things that really are important.

its got no DIRECT relationship to graff, more gangs, guns, drugs, but heres an article:CIA, crack, government housing (http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/economy/ethnic_cleansing_usa.html)

and heres a little piece of it:
"Ethnic cleansing is a bit trickier in South Central Los Angeles than it is in South Central Europe. It is essential in a "democracy" to have people do it in a way that makes it look like they're "doing it" to themselves. You need a socially induced suicide.

So how do you get people to commit suicide? You make it very attractive for their children to make money doing something illegal. Then you arrest them for it in a very visible way (Remember the battering rams and armored cars?). You design stories to make people blame themselves for what has happened. This is how branding works. Pepsi = tastes good, Black people = cause illegal drugs and crime. Support all this by a national media owned by defense contractors and other corporate interests. That way the nightly news has lots of moneymaking incentives to cover HUD OIG sponsored drug raids in black communities rather than doing a story on CIA drug trafficking.

The most efficient ethnic cleansing is self-financed or, better yet, profitable. Drugs and alcohol are excellent tools toward this end, especially when they are combined with easy access to guns. Sell large amounts of addictive substances to a group of people in an area you want to take over, then use the cash flow to buy up their homes and commercial real estate for 10 cents on the dollar, without much competition, while you enjoy the full value of their cash flow. You can then afford the long holding period required to make the land profitable again after the cleansing period is over.

I believe that if the Federal government would make citizens' data (and it is our data) available, instead of trying to suppress it, it would prove that taxpayers are losing money to fund ethnic cleansing while the people in South Central LA are losing their lives. And I believe that it was the effectiveness of our maps which threatened to expose the deeper financial agendas of the eighties. I believe our current model, the Solari Investment Model, (www.solarivillage.com) which I am still developing, may well tie Iran-Contra, The Savings and Loan Scandals and the HUD scandals of the late 1980s into one big economic package designed to benefit a very few. The way to start to do this is to look closely at all the government investment, credit and regulations in Los Angeles since 1980.

Our maps suggest to me and others that the crack cocaine epidemic, created by the CIA was, I believe, just as much a program of ethnic cleansing and land grabbing economic warfare as it was about a bunch of rebels in Central America who were not the equivalent of our Founding Fathers. But this kind of ethnic cleansing was hard to contain and it spread to other races and classes. It reached the rural and suburban neighborhoods of places like Iowa, Ohio and Tennessee"


but ya im interested in it as a resistance culture, thats half of what attracted me in the first place. not that i realy use it that way :(

[it-cant-rain-all-the-timelalala]

maybe only the fact thjat we put art every where could be a motive for people to do art and think more about what they do or think...(which is art for me)

[Escape]

I'll post more but don't have the time for it right now. But in short, i would look towards stencil and wheatie artists for making a political staement. Paticularly look up Banksy, he's done some crazy shit, but in the end sold out.

After reading that ethnic cleansing thing, i'm thinking about the possibility of "cultural cleansing", when our movement became big enough to become a threat to the government and they couldn't stop it with authority, they commercialize it to control it's progress. You can't really blame anyone but the people shelling out money and paying us to do what we love, and then you think is that so wrong?

Prolly not making sense right now, but i'll post more later.

[slick dick willy]

Graffiti is a form anarchy or deviance,
as explained in sociology textbooks.

graff does not go with the order of society, and actually goes against
governments,provinces,cities,communities,ghetto's and so on.

Graff has become a tool by groups, individuals to spread political messages
that are not mentioned in mainsream media sources and to rise awareness
of a certian issue, cause, or event.

Everything iilegal is made to be there so people take action in.
Otherwise there would not be order without disorder.

Nurture or Nature?:

Is a person born with a genetic disorder to do crime or is
a person a product of his or her environment.
A person that is raised in a positive environment becomes a positive
person in society and is well to do, while the negative person struggles to survive,
this is in most cases the lower-class, the negative person does everything to stay alive by drug dealing, selling arms and so on.

In the past century states have build housing to divide the black and the white or
any so called minority for that matter, seperating the "ill' will provide the "cleansed" and avoid problems that plague the lower-class to cross the upper-class.

[it-cant-rain-all-the-timelalala]

Everything iilegal is made to be there so people take action in.
Otherwise there would not be order without disorder.

its still debatable...

Is a person born with a genetic disorder to do crime or is
a person a product of his or her environment.
A person that is raised in a positive environment becomes a positive
person in society and is well to do, while the negative person struggles to survive,
this is in most cases the lower-class, the negative person does everything to stay
alive by drug dealing, selling arms and so on.


this is only an aspect of the ''problem''... that negative personne is negative in the
restreint point of view of the doctrine...also what is a genetic disorder?
when someone is predetermined to do something or to be someway... wouldnt it be more logic to say people develop those ''habits'' in concordance with their environnement and their conciousness?..the councsious being chooses to ignore or
not to ignore(show attention, have a complexe reflexion).. that is his main fonction.. i presume...

maybe im way out of the topic but that is what i though ''at the time''

....is that now?

[Alyte]

Originally posted by SoldAsFreedom@Mar 10 2005, 06:00 PM
Like a kid who's always heard nothing but the media and other right-wing type efforts can see something like that and it can change the way he or she thinks.
or the kid who hops on the anti-bush, peace blah blah blah bandwagon. :rolleyes:

[Vulture]

I love Bush, specially my girlfriends :D

[Mite]

Graff art is not "its own culture" its part of hiphop. theres 4 elements to hiphop.

1)Dj'ing
2)Bboyin
3)Graffin
4)MC'ing

so write up on all of these or just graff. dont lable it as its own culutre tho.

[it-cant-rain-all-the-timelalala]

how come people dont always listen to hip hop...

anyways if people want to identify it as a culture why would you want to stop them?
Some consider beatboxing the fifth element of hip hop; others might add political activism, hip hop fashion, hip hop slang.. w-e

still people dont relate to hip hop all the time and that is enough to identify it as a "culture" of its own and even there... theyre are sub culture IN graffiti culture...

im open to any objection....

[rezwan]

Originally posted by Alyte@Sep 19 2005, 07:09 PM
or the kid who hops on the anti-bush, peace blah blah blah bandwagon. :rolleyes:
well you pretty much have to have no concern for the world you live in to not be on that "bandwagon"...

but whatever not the topic.

ya once again im on lalala's side. i'm pretty sure in the early days of writing, like in the 70s, it was mostly rocker kids tagging shit. even now there's still lot of writers that arent into hiphop music or breaking or anything, but it can be a gateway to these things, just like certain music can be a gateway to graffiti...

i think afrika bambaataa just kinda brought them into the whole movement cuz he recognized it as one of the new things goin on at the time, with the same kinda motivations and he wanted people unified and working together. but anyway i think it kinda goes beyond hiphop because it can be so many different things, social/anti-social, group/solo, focused on messages/styles, pictures or words, 1 color or 20 colors, markers or paint or scratchies, freehand or stencils, whatever. plus its been around since like always.

[Escape]

Correct if i'm wrong, and i forgot where i read this . .. most likely on art crimes. But even tho we consider graffiti to be a subculture of hip-hop, it has also had strong influences from punk music. I'm not really informed on the topic, but if some older heads could shine some light on this, it would be cool.

The four elements statement came from rock-steady crew. Alot of people hold it to be the gospel truth now, but the thing is rocksteady only made up the four elements to help the public understand what hip-hop is, they took the four glamourus perforimg aspects of hip-hop.

In other interviews, Rock steady explained this and they said that there is alot of culture in hip-hop that is based on marketing, promotion style, fashon, etc. This seems pretty obvious too, because not everyone that's down with hip-hop culture is necessarily a deejay, emcee, b-boy or writer, there are people who rep hip-hop without taking part in the 'four elements'.

[slick dick willy]

Genectic disorder is a controversial subject in court cases,
meaning that there is a chromosome in males, this chromosome
is found in many criminals, and that there is a heredity line of crimes in someones
family tree meaning:if your parents are convicts or anyone in your family then
there is a possible chance that the male son can have an increase in criminal
activity.

Although graffiti is part of the element of hip hop, the classifiaction of graffiti
molded in the hip hop subculture, as inner-city youth in New York.
Graffiti was not called "hip hop" in the begininng, it was simply a hobby
that you did.

Graffiti was then molded together with the other rest of the elements around the
time of style wars and wild style. Graffiti is the least commercially element in
hip hop because you cant get paid for bombing.

although there is a growing amount of stereotype as how a writer is supposed
to look like and act, this stereotype was released to the people by corporations
that only goal was to make dough out of the once subculture. Nowadays "Hip hop"
music is very mainstream.

[AKalien]

it pisses people off and is at times political with iraq and george bush stuff around it so i think it is a form of rebellion

[Karlaps]

im addicted to crack