The History of graffiti (according to wiki :)

Basic Definition- lettering or images scratched, scrawled, painted or marked on property/ public marking...
i assume this means property not belonging or with permission of the owner... otherwise surely lots of things we consider art or design would be considered graffiti...
Some people consider man kind's early cave paintings as the earliest form of graffiti because they seem to have been making marks on a surface/wall which doesnt belong to them, without permission of the owner :S not sure about this one....
perhaps this consideration is more to do with the origins of the word!
Graffiti comes from the Italian word graffiato which means scratched
'sgrafitto' is a term used for scratching away one layer of pigment to REVEAL ANOTHER BENEATH- i think this has quite a strong relationship to the idea of COLLAGE and distressed collages, like we are intending to produce!


Modern graffiti-
as old as Ancient Greece!- a red handprint and footprint with numbers, believed to show a brothel is near by
Ancient Rome- phrases of love declarations, poetical rhetoric ect...
Today it is considered to be used for portaying SOCIAL and POLITICAL IDEAS (some evidence of this in Pompeii)
(historical graffiti has also offered and insight into the lives of the people who wrote it- their lives, views and degree of education)


Graffiti is seen to be intertwined with hiphop, lots of styles come from New York Subways... (you know the style, not stenciling so much, but the fat bouncy letters that are impossible to read)


Also associated with anti-establishment punk rock movements in the 70's


Stencils where introduced by BLEK LE RAT in Paris, 1985. I'm not sure his work is particularly relevant but its good and well worth a look! I will post if i find any that are relevant!
stenciling also has basic references to pop art, but i believe they only really stand up depending on the colours used


2001- GRAFFITI BECOMES COMMERCIAL
has been used in advertising by IBM and SONY (psp)
------maybe the use of spray cans is too over done...?------
 but is everything in art has already been done, then who's judging??


My Conclusion- It has been show, especially over the weekend by the protests that graffiti is used politically but any imagery we use will appear comercial
if we use a spray can at all it should be black and simply for writing with!
i think the reference to graffiti within collage is quite interesting and the idea of scratching words into other things


Jo :)