Urban (Mis)communication:
Perception of Graffiti Through the
Public Eye
A comparative case study in New York and Amsterdam
By Jingyan Dong
Abstract
Modern graffiti has been developing world-wide for 60 years. Illegally placed graffiti is still regarded by urban authorities as vandalism, even as graffiti has enjoyed mainstream popularity due to its artistic imagery and intersection with different subcultures. Over the years, many institutions and social actors have participated in the production of graffiti in cities. The relationships of graffiti with various social actors have been internationally discussed in academia, but limited literature examines the relationship between graffiti and the public. This comparative case study in New York City and Amsterdam investigates public perspectives and interaction with graffiti in the public space through regular and digital walk-along interviews. The research contributes to the understanding of how graffiti as a communicative object in the urban space interacts with urban dwellers and explains five types of communicative relationships between graffiti and the public viewer.
Key words
Introduction
Placing images in public space has a long tradition that goes back to Pompeii in Italy around 78 B.C. dated by historians(Schacter, 2013; Tomàs et al., 2014). When we speak of graffiti nowadays, we refer to the ones that started in North America at the end of the 1960s. Photos of graffiti published by the media soon gained international attention and urban dwellers in the world started to leave their own works upon the public surfaces of different cities. A subculture began to form around graffiti and styles and techniques associated with it, such as stencils, stickers or masterpieces (see Figure. 1). Spray-painted on walls, trains, street lamps, mailboxes and other surfaces in the urban environment, graffiti manifest the relationship between materiality and society. The relationships of graffiti with the wider society have been widely discussed in academia. Previous research has investigated the relationship of graffiti with the state in terms of its legitimacy and place in public space, with the art world and creative industry, its role within urban development in terms of art-led gentrification, etc (Andron, 2018, Ley, 2016; Mcauliffe, 2012; Pan, 2014; Romero, 2018). At the intersection with research on subcultures, researchers have pointed out the graffiti are civic or democratic statements of its practitioners (Schacter, 2013; van Meerbeke & Sletto, 2019; Young, 2014).
However, questions on how graffiti are consumed and read by the public viewers are rarely asked or researched. Beyond producers and urban managing authorities, graffiti also has a direct relationship with its public viewers who encounter it everyday in urban spaces. No matter what techniques are applied, graffiti can be seen as ornamentation of the public space. In his book
Ornament and Order: Graffiti, Street Art and the Parergon, Rafael Schachter (2014a) argues
that graffiti inherently contain an ornamental status and transforms meanings and messages from graffiti practitioners to the public in the public space. Graffiti as ornamentation emphasizes the relationships between graffiti and its practitioners, and between graffiti and its viewers. Graffiti pieces are considered communicative objects, capable of transmitting (or not) creators’ intentions and purposes to public viewers. Simultaneously, the public is active in consuming and interacting with graffiti intentionally.
My research is going to conceptualize the relationship between graffiti and public individuals as viewers, based on empirical research on how they encounter and interact with graffiti. Based on Schacter’s theory about graffiti as ornamentation transmitting messages and meanings to the public, the research hypothesizes that the relationship between the public and graffiti is characterized by communication and appreciation. This hypothesis was tested by comparing selected case areas of New York and Amsterdam, two places well known for thriving graffiti scenes, as well as for their artistic and lively urban atmosphere。
The paper consists of four sections. I start by introducing the historical development of modern graffiti, previous research on graffiti in urban spaces and introduce the concept of graffiti as ornamentation. Secondly, I introduce my methodology in terms of case selection, walking interviews for data collection and thematic approach for data analysis. In the third section, I elaborate in detail my findings, including the five types of communication between graffiti and its viewers. Lastly, I summarize the findings of the case studies and put forward suggestions for further research.
Theoretical Frameworks
Background
Scholars who research modern graffiti trace its origin to the late 1960s on the East Coast of the United States (Kramer, 2017; Schacter, 2014b). Originally, graffiti was practiced particularly by young urban dwellers who put their nicknames or marks on public surfaces, such as public transportation, facilities, or walls in neighborhoods. Kramer (2017) contends that graffiti in this earlier period was a way of publicly writing simple messages using easy techniques, which made its practice accessible to all. Graffiti practitioners believed leaving their mark as much as possible in the public would lead to recognition among their peers and improve their social status in the subculture. More and more participants started to get involved in graffiti production. Some of them started to develop distinctive styles, or search for special locations to stand out. With the increasing appreciation of graffiti from the art world, even some artists started to practice graffiti. While in the early years of graffiti subculture only a small part of the community expressed artistic or social values, once artists and activists started to join, the focus shifted from quantity to quality in terms of the artistic and social values expressed by graffiti (Schacter, 2014a).
Modern graffiti is often classified in terms of producing techniques and locations. Specifically, the typology of graffiti nowadays consists of: tags and throw-ups which are based on names or aliases with limited colors, masterpieces which are elaborate pictures with more colors and details, poster and stickers which are created ahead of time and stuck on public surfaces, stencils which are applied with the help of a prepared stencil, and heavens which are pieces put up on places difficult to reach (Snyder, 2009). With various contents and techniques, modern graffiti occupies urban public space visually; from public transport routes to the facades of buildings, from street facilities to the rolling gates of shops. 60 years after the start of modern graffiti culture, graffiti has become a world-wide urban phenomenon which city residents and visitors encounter often in public spaces. Graffiti is generally used as a lens to understand different urban phenomena such as legitimacy and moral issues (Ferrell, 1996; Kramer, 2010; Tomàs et al., 2014; Valjakka, 2014; Willcocks et al., 2015), commodification and graffiti-led gentrification (Ley, 2016; Mcauliffe, 2012; Romero, 2018;Young, 2014; Zukin et al,, 2009), graffiti and urban space ((Brighenti, 2010; Evans, 2017; Martínez, 2020; Trubina, 2018). Previous research tends to either leave out public viewers or assign them a passive role. On one hand, Kramer (2017) identifies four groups of actors that have a major influence on the production of graffiti—graffiti participants, the state or political elites and mass media, the art world and cultural industry. Existing research has comprehensively conceptualized these relationships - between graffiti and practitioners (Schacter, 2014a; Snyder, 2009), urban planners and regulators (Ferrel, 1996; Kramer, 2010), and the creative industry (Snyder, 2009). On the other hand, research which theorizes public viewers’ relationship with graffiti tends to construct public viewers as passive consumers (Andron, 2018; Cinar Umdu & Ozturk, 2017). Andron (2018), based on her research of street art tours in London, argues that the design of street art tours by tourism companies reflects a strategic deployment of market-led or authoritative aesthetic discourse manipulating public viewers’ seeing and appreciating street art (or graffiti). (Andron, 2018). Instead of communicating initiatively with a wider range of
graffiti, viewers can only engage passively with graffiti scenes being selected according to the dominant discourse. Another approach regards graffiti as artefacts that are produced with the intention to strengthen community ties. In Cinar Umdu and Ozturk (2017) article about public attitudes towards graffiti, the authors conduct a quantitative survey with interviewing the residents in Izmir City. The cases in the survey are mainly official- and community- commissioned graffiti or graffiti events. The result shows that people face difficulty of seeing or joining graffiti in the city, despite many people report that they desire for more graffiti. This view assumes that acceptance is the desired relationship between graffiti and the public, implying that graffiti should be designed for its audience in mind. However, limiting the purpose of graffiti to a design choice to be consumed by a passive viewer neglects the complex individual experiences and personal relationships between graffiti and its viewers.
Graffiti as ornamentation in the public space
Graffiti is integral to the urban environment and the urban experience. Even though graffiti is usually observed by passers-by passively and only for a brief moment, the images encourage viewers (or ‘consumers’) to reflect on social and ideological processes happening in urban space (Lynn & Lea, 2005). My research borrows Rafael Schacter’s (2014a) theoretical lens in which graffiti is considered to be “ornamentation” of (public) spaces. Schacter defines graffiti as artefact materials which link those who produce it, i.e. graffiti practitioners, to those who view it, i.e. viewers who encounter graffiti in public spaces. This is a structuralist view of graffiti which argues that graffiti is inherently intended to communicate meanings and messages (ibid, 2014). In short, graffiti has literal and symbolic meanings.
According to architectural theorist Janathan Hill (2006), ornaments are defined through two aspects: something that is attached to a surface and something that provides decoration. Following Hill’s definition, graffiti is ornamental in two ways. Firstly, graffiti is supplementary to architectural surface. It is created and placed often on a surface without previous aesthetic value. Secondly, all forms of graffiti can be said to be decorative as they are completed with the key principles of ‘order or unity, scales, contrast, balance and rhythm’ in mind (Schacter, 2014a). Graffiti are created to establish a balance or a contrast to the surroundings, and always contain the practitioners’ designs and messages. The decorative nature of graffiti is activated by the ways through which meanings and messages embraced in graffiti images are transmitted to others. The meaning and messages of graffiti artefacts function as intermediaries to complete communication between its viewers and practitioners (ibid, 2014). In summary, ornamentation theory integrates the communicative and aesthetic aspects of graffiti.
M
ost importantly, ornamentation theory connects graffiti to public space, where the communicative relationship between practitioners and viewers plays out. The relationship for the public viewer depends on the ways s/he deciphers and interprets the messages of the graffiti image. Even though the original meaning of a graffiti can easily be misinterpreted by viewers, Grabar (1992) argues that graffiti can also lead to a ‘emotional or psychological reaction’, for example, expressing appreciation or disdain. In order to understand how graffiti as ornamentation set up communication in the public space, Schacter (2014) categorizes two distinctive forms of graffiti-ornamentation—consensual ornamentation and agonistic ornamentation. The distinction between the two is whether the intentional communicative values search for consensus from or disruption to viewers.“Consensual Ornamentation can be understood as a discourse shaped to facilitate an intense communal transaction, an act orientated, at its very basis towards the reaching of an understanding, a sympathy and intersubjective relation with its public accomplices”(Schacter, 2014: 86).
Consensus here does not mean an agreement with others but understanding and/or expressing in an independent state in the public space. Consensual ornamentation is regarded as desirable for setting up open civic dialogue and rational consensus with the wider public (ibid., 2014: 55). Both the practitioner and viewer communicate as an individual through graffiti-as-ornamentation, creating a communication process where the messages created by the practitioner are received by the viewer. Schacter (2014) contends that the process of communication through graffiti creates a platform for rational communication between graffiti practitioners and viewers, an important element in the public sphere (Habermas, 1999). According to Habermas (1999), the public sphere should be a neutral zone open to all citizens on an equal basis, where all information is made available and discussion is open to all. Consensual graffiti must be differentiated from other public visual objects which aim at “convincing, persuading, informing, ordering, warning” public viewers (Schacter, 2014: 87). For example, the advertisements are introducing a product and intending to persuade people to buy; the traffic signs are ordering and/or warning the viewers on streets to walk or stop at certain points. All these objects aim to effect a further consequence on the messages’ receivers. Consensual graffiti, however, are the attempts of creators to gain others’ recognition and understanding, rather than intending any results. However, whether the dialogue and communication could be realized mutually in public is dependent on the viewers, once graffiti has been produced. In my research, I use the notion of agonistic ornamentation to assess if viewers have reached an understanding with the messages expressed in graffiti.
“Agonistic ornamentation can be understood to function as ‘a technique of trouble’ to combat the deadening vacuity of the ostensibly public sphere. It is presented to disrupt the hierarchy among media. It is a type of language game revealing local narratives.” (Schacter, 2014a:103)
Agonistic ornamentation, on the other hand, are graffiti which are mainly placed with hardly understandable or visually pleasant appearance, such as unreadable twisted letters (tags). Agonistic graffiti are created to demonstrate contrasting ideas challenging accepted public values and to cause disruption in the public sphere. Agonistic theorists believe that, rather than achieving consensus, democratic public spheres should allow diverse values to coexist (Schacter, 2014a). Consensual agreement is undesirable as it creates a public sphere that breeds hegemonic power and becomes easily controlled by authorities (ibid., 2014). It is necessary to recognize disagreement within public sphere. Firstly, agonistic graffiti are considered symbols which contest the dominant and prevailing visual culture in the city. It uses public space not only as canvas but as a zone to communicate a disruption to the dominant communicative and aesthetic values. Dominant values here represent the ones which are enforced onto a society or public by the state, market, or media. For example, tourism companies design certain routes to show a selected collection of graffiti in cities; governments/real estate companies commission artists to create graffiti on particular public places. Those graffiti tours or projects define an artistic discourse to consumers (or viewers). Agonistic ornamentation tends to be unofficial and
non-commissioned secondly, agonistic graffiti contests social norms and public orders. They are widely considered an annoying and disturbing appearance on the public surfaces due to their challenging of the dominant discourses and disruption of the orders in the public. Agonistic graffiti are charged as disobeying laws and rules. Agonistic ornamentation, which is often illegal and visually unpleasant, is a statement against the laws which protect property ownerships, against the normative values of how architectures and public facilities should be used, and against normal ways of writing and using languages. In my research, I use the notion of agonistic ornamentation to assess if viewers respond to graffiti with appreciation or disdain.
Methodology
Hypothesis and Research questions
In theory, graffiti are considered as ornamentation attached upon public surfaces. The fundamental logic behind their relationship in the public space is shaped through communication of meanings and messages embodying in the ornamental materials themselves. Ornamentation theory regards graffiti as communicative objects, capable of transmitting (or not) practitioners’ intentions and purposes to public viewers. The relationship between graffiti and public viewers contains two sides: practitioners-graffiti and graffiti-viewers. However, since the relationship between practitioners and graffiti has been well-studied (Bengtsen, 2013; Miller, 2002; Romero, 2018; Schacter, 2013; Snyder, 2009; Young, 2014), while the theory is under-developed regarding the relationship between graffiti and viewers, my paper will develop this relationship by analyzing the modes of communication between public viewers and graffiti. To guide my research findings, four types of communication can be hypothesized from the two modes of ornamentation. First, public viewers may express consensus or dissent with graffiti as ornamentation, leading to 1) appreciation of graffiti or 2) lack of appreciation or dislike of graffiti. Second, public viewers may agree or disagree with graffiti as ornamentation’s challenge to public order, leading to 3) understanding or 4) misunderstanding of the graffiti’s message.
Public viewers are assumed to take a passive role in the production of graffiti in urban spaces. However, the presence of graffiti in their surroundings creates unavoidable encounters between viewers and tags, throw-ups, masterpieces, murals, etc.. Therefore, this paper engages with and expands on existing theories on graffiti as a communicative object bridging the relationship between graffiti practitioners and public viewers. My research question is how can we conceptualize the relationship between graffiti and the public (See Conceptual Framework in Graph 1). To be more specific, the research is guided by questions that 1) what are public viewers’ attitudes towards graffiti and how do they react to the presence of graffiti in the urban spaces; 2) through which modes of communication do public viewers engage with graffiti in urban space.
Graph 1. Conceptual Framework
Methods
Comparative studies
To answer the research questions, I conducted this comparative case under the context of graffiti facing a controversy in global cities that promote themselves as creative cities.
I chose New York City and Amsterdam as cases due to the following reasons: firstly, Amsterdam and New York City are both global cities attracting many tourists and immigrants. The residents tend to be diverse in terms of social and cultural backgrounds. Secondly, they both have relatively long traditions of graffiti scenes (Cooper & Chalfant, 1984; van Loon, 2014). New York City is arguably the city of origin for contemporary graffiti (Cooper & Chalfant, 1984). Particularly the images and videos of graffiti travelling on top of subway cars has been frequently depicted by the media. Meanwhile, it is believed that graffiti in Amsterdam has been influenced by New York practitioners since the 1970s (Chalfant & Prigoff, 1987). Thirdly, both cities’ officials are restrictive to unsanctioned graffiti and categorizing them as vandalism and violation to private properties (Amsterdam.info, n.d.; Kramer, 2010; van Loon, 2014). People practicing graffiti illegally would face high fines or even imprison. However, graffiti is also part of the cities’ marketing strategies to promote their creative and cultural value. Graffiti has been appropriated as urban art by municipal authorities to build a lively urban environment, generate profits from rising real estate values and attract tourists (Amsterdam.info, n.d.; Kramer, 2010). Within both cities, I chose case areas to reflect a variety of graffiti styles public viewers would naturally encounter in public space, choosing to avoid graffiti present in private or semi-private space. To set up encounters as close to participants’ daily lives as possible, I chose case areas that residents would visit frequently, namely mixed-use spaces in lively neighborhoods known for their nightlife and cultural attractions. Case areas were also chosen to contain a diverse range of graffiti. Thus, in New York City, the area spanning Chinatown to the Lower East Side was chosen. Correspondingly, Amsterdam Centrum was chosen.
Data collection
To collect data, I conducted 20 interviews in Amsterdam and 15 in New York City. The respondents were found through snowball sampling by using personal connections. To understand the average public reactions, I tried to find a mix of respondents with different ages, genders and socio-cultural backgrounds (see Appendix A).
Based on the hypothesis and research questions, I applied walking interviews as my methods. Walking interviews are a flexible and adaptive research method for social science, especially anthropology and geography. The approach provides ample and unique data to researchers through observing people’s engagement with space and place and understanding individual experiences and values (King, 2017). Walks create opportunities for encounters between public viewers and graffiti, and collect responses and reactions in real-time. For both New York and Amsterdam, the walking routes were planned within the selected neighborhoods to cover different types of graffiti on different locations and buildings. Before the walking interviews, questions were asked about participants’ general attitudes towards graffiti. This introductory interview was structured. During the actual walk, the interview was unstructured graffiti. During the walking interviews, I observed how people reacted to different works of graffiti, which guided me to ask their opinions and concerns regarding particular works of graffiti. The follow-up questions identified to what extent that communication between respondents and graffiti images were realized. Furthermore, I asked questions related to the visited ‘place’ during and after the interview to connect graffiti-ornamentation to its location and place, focusing on whether participants thought a piece fit for its environment.
In Amsterdam, however, due to unexpected Covid-19 pandemic, I could not conduct walking interviews in person and created a virtual walk with the help of photographs. This way I could hold the second round of interviews over Zoom. The photographs did not only show the graffiti but also the surrounding environments and locations visible. Also, I found interviewees who were familiar with the researched neighborhood and had been there multiple times before. Even though it was not possible to live track people’s reactions they way it was in NYC, I asked them how they would expect to react to the particular work of graffiti in real life.
Data analysis
The interviews were analyzed using a thematic analysis approach (Bryman, 2012). Thematic analysis is a flexible approach to analyze qualitative data by identifying, analyzing, and reporting themes in the data collection (Braun&Clarke, 2006). Thematic analysis is a structured method to find similarities and classify individual accounts (ibid, 2006). Following Braun and Clarke’s introduction of thematic analysis, I went through all my data collection and generated initial codes in a systematic fashion. While being guided by my hypothesis and research questions, the data was coded by considering public viewers’ modes of communication with graffiti-ornamentation. Then I search for themes among codes separately and made a thematic ‘map’ of the analysis to see how the public develop their relationship with urban graffiti. In total, 20 themes were identified. After analyzing the themes, the connection between them became visible.
Limitation
mentioned above, comparing to walking interview, online interview lacks of real life reactions of respondents. The density and mobility of pedestrians in the space could only influence on people’s behaviors and attentions to graffiti when they present in the situation. However, in online interviews, even though photos with a surrounding scene were provided, the atmosphere on streets cannot be experienced. Also it is impossible to cover all graffiti in the center of Amsterdam in the photo collection. My selection of graffiti might limit respondents to express their perspectives according to personal preferences. But I compared the online interviews with the ones from real life walking, people’s reactions were reported in general as mostly consistent with the later ones.
A second limitation is the bias of sampling. It would have been desirable to have a more diverse participant groups, such as different educational background, different occupations. Because social upbringing is important in the perception of graffiti. A diverse group of respondents could provide public perspectives in more detailed and representative way. Also it could have some perspective of practitioners to compare intentions and interpretation of the graffiti practitioners with public perspectives. But it was difficult to gain access to those who still practitioners out of fear of legal consequences. In the case of further research, it could be greater improvement in the connecting the ideas between graffiti practitioners and public viewers.
Findings
My hypotheses led me to consider graffiti as ornamentation with the intention of communicating messages and meanings to the public. This section summarizes four types of communication which I observed between research participants and the works of graffiti that we encountered during the walking interviews. Participants’ interactions with and reactions to works of graffiti were divided into appreciation and understanding, in accordance with ornamentation theory and my hypotheses. These reactions were further subdivided into positive-negative, i.e. appreciation and lack of appreciation, and understanding and misunderstanding. Additionally, in the process I found that people also neglected or ignored certain works of graffiti. This implies that many responses were not communicative at all, which was unexpected. These responses were further grouped into ambivalence, ignorance or lack of communication. I will summary the findings in the manner of common place in the two cases, yet the differences between the two are also observed and mentioned in the text.
1. Appreciation
Graffiti has been regarded as a type of urban art ever since it started to gain the attention of the art world. Starting as a rebellious style of public calligraphy, graffiti nowadays apply a variety of styles. Different graffiti practitioners have introduced their own visual language and graffiti are analyzed and exhibited to the public through popular culture, social media, and academic discussion. The first question I asked participants before taking them on a graffiti walk was about their general opinion towards graffiti. Considering the well-developed graffiti scenes in both NYC and Amsterdam, it was unsurprising that none of the respondents gave a negative answer or claimed to feel negative emotions when encountering graffiti. In both Amsterdam and New York, respondents claimed acceptance or tolerance of graffiti in public spaces, as long as they were not displayed on their own buildings without permission, or
threatening their own profits in case of business owners. People who demonstrated more appreciation were commonly working in creative industries or majoring in social sciences. Most of the respondents considered graffiti to be good for the public appearance as they were considered public urban art or even a representation of a democratic city.
Even though unsanctioned graffiti is still classified as vandalism by urban authorities, the public does not generally seem to be concerned with its legal status. Instead, graffiti is automatically considered urban art.
“New York is the place where you can see graffiti, especially good ones. Artists from all over the world come here and make their graffiti here. I think it is cool to see graffiti in cities in general.” (RN-7)
“You can’t see such thing in Asia. It is not something of government propaganda. It is free art for everyone on the street.” (RA-19)
Despite the status of graffiti as an artistic expression, personal aesthetic and artistic taste still played a huge role in the way different graffiti were discussed. Although participants generally expressed their appreciation for graffiti, the reactions to and discussion of particular works of graffiti were based on individual artistic standards. Preferences were based on painting styles, location, integration into the landscape, color combinations, perceived overall visual pleasure, or even artistic instinct.
“This one suits Chinatown so well. I like it. You can see many stories about Chinese and Chinese Americans’ experiences here in the whole pieces. And the picture as a whole shows Chinatown, which I think it’s cool.” (RN-11) (see Figure 1)
“I prefer to see a nice pattern or colorful picture. It makes the building interesting.” (RN-5)
During the walk, participants tended to start a discussion with me about which graffiti did not meet their artistic preferences and often ended up criticizing graffiti along the way. Furthermore, some people took photos of the graffiti that they found visually pleasant, often with the intention of later sharing them on social media.
“I saw this before. I took a photo too. I think it shows the ‘authentic’ of Amsterdam. Also every time I saw a nice graffiti, I would take photos to share on Instagram. I think it’s authentic art as part of this city.” (RA-20) (see Figure 2)
Figure 2. Tags and “BB King” post on the surface of Stadsloket Centre, Ametel, Amsterdam
2. Lack of appreciation/dislike
In particular, in the Amsterdam case study, a number of people pointed out a feeling of disappointment towards the local graffiti scene. While graffiti in New York were diverse and plentiful, and displayed in nearly every corner of the city, the graffiti in Amsterdam Centrum are not to be encountered frequently and scattered few and far between. Participants reported that they felt graffiti in Amsterdam was very curated:
“I feel it's so controlled. And it's like a surprise if there is a graffiti anywhere. it's surprising that you can see that here, which is I think, in some ways, it's really funny because supposedly, this is like a very edgy and cool town with like, weed and prostitutes and whatever but not too many graffiti. And like everything else I feel is like so neat and ordered and even the graffiti is neat and ordered and confined at very few places where kind of temporary so like if you open this up, the graffiti would disappear.” (RA-7) (see Figure 3)
Figure 3. Tags on the wall of a shop, Oudezijds Achterburgwal, Amsterdam
Even though the respondent disliked the graffiti scene in Amsterdam Centrum, for her and many others, they appreciated graffiti’s symbolic meaning associated with feelings toward the space it was located in. In this case, the content of the graffiti did not provoke the exchange of ideas, ideals or knowledge. Rather, its presence, juxtaposed against the City of Amsterdam, was a significant point of discussion.
Another type of graffiti that was met with dislike were offensive graffiti, which is not covered in Ornamentation theories. Interestingly, offensive graffiti was recognized quickly as offensive by participants. In this case, it was clear that the intention behind the graffiti, likely to provoke or insult publicly, was received and condemned by participants. They quickly expressed a dislike for the offensive graffiti, followed by starting a discussion on its thematic contents.
“I guess some people need to get their aggression out in some ways. Here and there. Facing and noticing the fact that racism exist here rather than denying them.” (RN-1)
3. Understanding
A number of respondents expressed strong appreciation of graffiti because of the values associated with graffiti culture. To be specific, some respondents believed graffiti is the ‘visual language’ of a city. It provides a canon for people to get to know a city in terms of, for example, its residents, its society and culture. Also, it represents the ‘right to the city’ and rebellion against ‘the system’, faceless institutional forces, such as manipulative authorities and governments that are ignoring the most pressing social issues.
subcultures of a city. So it's very interesting, especially in a city that I don't know that well, interesting to see what kind of a group or what kind of people, what kind of subculture exists there and then how they can express and so on.” (RA-5)
“So it definitely does not bother me if there's like traces of life around. It means that people use the space and come to it…. because I thought urbanism or urban planning or city related things were putting humans in space. So anything or any life that comes out of it, is inevitable and normal and expected. So, like tags or graffiti art for me is the logical result of people living in a place. It's just how they appropriated.” (RA-8)
Furthermore, there were several participants who seemed to have a deeper understanding of graffiti and its surrounding culture due to life experiences, such as having practiced graffiti when they were young, living in different cities or coming from a different socio-cultural background. All of these factors would influence and shape their appreciation of the subculture. Biography also influences the perception of certain cities’ graffiti subculture through comparison with their former experiences.
“I lived in Vancouver for years. I know this (full of tags and stickers) is what a Chinatown in Western countries supposed to look like. I wouldn't pay attention to tags or things like that, but if I imagine there’s a Chinatown without these tags, I’ll feel something is missing.” (RN-4) (see Figure 4)
Some graffiti with clear messages drew people’s attention more easily. Most of these graffiti conveyed ideas through clear linguistic writing, or with cultural or social references. Encountering decipherable images made people stop and prolong their interaction with the graffiti-ornamentation, in the form of taking photos, discussing the images with me, and searching for more information online according to writers’ tags. Such interactions made the communication between graffiti practitioners and viewers in the public space visible. Echoing with the hypotheses, participants who connected works of graffiti to its sociocultural context understood the works of graffiti’s intention to disrupt and call into question social norms. People who understood graffiti as disruption to the social order often did so due to their personal interest or prior experiences with graffiti, and tended to act on their reactions by sharing and spreading the messages they liked best.
4. Misunderstanding
However, some participants also disapproved of graffiti, concerned that certain graffiti could be disturbing or exert bad influences on society. The rebellious nature of graffiti demonstrates the agonistic intentions of graffiti as ornamentation that disrupts public order (Schacter, 2014a). The actual interviews contrasted with the initial interviews on public attitudes towards graffiti. Even if people claim their appreciation of graffiti’s rebellion or subversion, in practice most participants expressed an antipathy to tags. A reoccurring theme of the interviews were the norms of behavior in public space. As believed by many participants, in order for graffiti to achieve public consensus, graffiti practitioners need to fulfill a certain aesthetic expectation. Especially tags, which were considered as a narcissist expression of the artist’s ego, or an unfortunate outcome of teenage aggressions. Unreadable tags were considered to be unpleasant to look at and disturbing of the environment they are placed in.
“I found graffiti without styles are very disturbing, especially tags (see Figure 5). You see them everywhere and they only make the environment messy. I like minimalism in architecture. It is probably nice to have different figures decorating the buildings but not my thing.” (RN-9)
“Firstly I cannot appreciate it as art because it looks ugly. Then, why people are so selfish to put their names on someone else’s gate. It is disrespected to others.” (RN-3)
“I think it’s perhaps infringing on others. I think it’s pushing their expression on other people. This isn’t done for the community. This is only for the ego. They just made up their name. They are not writing a message or a poem. They're only writing their name. Okay, it's about me. It's about my ego. I want people to see me.” (RA-18)
Figure 5. Throw-ups on the doors of a building, Canel St., NYC
Other than tags, graffiti placed on monuments, or historical buildings were also considered as disturbing. Only one participant expressed the radical opinion that graffiti that are anti-oppressive systems were acceptable on monuments or historical buildings. This did, however, not include graffiti that were image-only.
“I was trying to think along the lines of like memorials or places when something bad happen but then I was thinking especially with the memorials where I can think of. So I think it's good to [have] some graffiti to actually have some control over the public space. But in 2000 I guess ultimately cleaning up memorials. It's such a power thing. It's only the powerful one that you can do it. So it's nice to have some power over it. I wouldn't feel like that there's a morally wrong with something or even that a nice place where we are supposed to not make it look bad. Also I feel like some places where in generally are super nice are places where a lot of wealth people or people who have a lot of power living there. So yea, they should be tagged a lot hell there.” (RA-7)
The misunderstanding about questioning graffiti’s legal status also demonstrates a slight difference between New York and Amsterdam cases. People in New York tended to critique tags which were displayed on some storefronts and/or were not artistically pleasant to them, while in Amsterdam, people tended to critique on works which failed to resonate with them.
Participants also expressed contrasting opinions when questioned about their attitude towards graffiti as a whole versus individual works of graffiti.
“I am not into graffiti. But I like the uncertainty of graffiti as a whole thing. It always adds something new. I don’t mind graffiti. But if there are something drawing my attention, my might stop and zoom out on the thing. But it is random and need a click.” (RA-4)
This participant did not consider individual graffiti but view the togetherness of different tags as a whole piece of decoration playing with the spatial environment. Overall, there were more instances of participants miscommunicating with graffiti, especially for tags, than expressing their understanding of their inherent messages. Thus, it cannot be argued that graffiti as agonistic ornamentation successfully forces the public to accept diverse values and the disruption of the public order.
One aspect specific to Amsterdam that led misunderstandings between the graffiti practitioners and the public was the use of language. Instead of writing in Dutch, many of the graffiti placed around Amsterdam were written in English. Considering that the center of Amsterdam is a popular area for tourists, writing graffiti in English makes it more likely to be read and shared by tourists, in turn heightening the chance of it gaining more momentum. However, it also makes offensive graffiti easily recognizable. It has been concerned in several interviews that some offensive graffiti in English are with intentions to be so.
“I would interpret this Tag (see Figure 6) as an offense to the tourists in Amsterdam, because its written in English and I heard about some problems with tourists in Amsterdam.” (RA-5)
Figure 6. The ‘offensive’ graffiti on an electricity box, Oudezijds Achterburgwal, Amsterdam
5. Ambivalence/Ignorance/Non-communication
While most participants said after the first question that they generally appreciated graffiti, it turned out that most participants had a very neutral attitude in general, in the sense that they did not mind graffiti and solely based their preferences for graffiti on aesthetic and artistic preferences. In fact, it seemed that participants mostly reacted to graffiti in an apolitical way, despite the different graffiti scenes in the two cases.
According to the responses I received from the interviews, the public tends to show little interest in the meanings or messages behind the graffiti appearances but mainly judge and
engage with the artistic aspect of the graffiti. Additionally, many works of graffiti were not even noticed or ignored by participants, which automatically hinders the transmission of potential messages or meanings. Even though respondents in both cities tended to neglect graffiti which they conceived as incommunicable or uninformative, there was a difference between NYC and Amsterdam regarding the general impression and associations the public has of the local graffiti scene. It is believed that graffiti are ‘everywhere’ in NYC. According to my observations, the graffiti scene in the researched neighborhoods in NYC are diverse in terms of containing different types of graffiti. Furthermore, they are very normalized in the city. The huge number of pieces painted across the city meant that purely aesthetic graffiti have less chance to be seen, recognized and deciphered. Ideally, through presenting alternative discourses in the public sphere, context-based graffiti aim at opening up a dialogue and rational communication with the public viewers. However, since too many graffiti were placed upon the areas where people are moving through quickly, such as transportation hubs, it required graffiti to be more outstanding, detailed, or larger scale to be noticed, compared to graffiti that stood out in Amsterdam.
“I feel graffiti already became a visual buzz notice here. I get to used to see many different graffiti, only those with styles or stories would draw my attention.” (RN-12)
In Amsterdam, people did not automatically associate the center with graffiti. Pieces tended to be scattered in hideous alleys, on electricity boxes, and temporary construction fences (see Figure 7 & 8 & 9). When we looked through photos, participants also pointed out that the graffiti are too simple and too easy without any aesthetic or artistic values to pay attention to. In other words, participants failed to communicate with the graffiti, and therefore, the information that it was trying to convey
“I just pass by. It is blinding, fading [in the space]…. I can’t read them. I can’t imagine what they want to say. Maybe I’m getting old.” (RA-1)
Figure 8. Tags on electricity boxes in a hideous alley, Monnikenstraat, Amsterdam
Figure 9. Throw-ups and tags on construction fence, Vijzelstraat, Amsterdam
Furthermore, Schacter (2014a) introduces aesthetics of graffiti ornamentation through analyzing individual practitioners’ works. He claims graffiti can be seen as expressions challenging the dominating discourse of the state or the market (Schacter, 2014a). However, the case of NYC revealed that legally-placed works of graffiti were the most often appreciated and understood, such as large murals in public spaces (see Figure 10), curated public art on government- or business-owned buildings and pieces commissioned by the government or local communities. Some of them are along with public parks and iconic streets with a high density
of pedestrians flows (see Figure 11). Some of them belong to real estate company or art galleries (see Figure 12). The legal walls set up a model for the public through educating them of an official aesthetics value of appreciating graffiti and create a ‘cool’ image of the local area with plenty of graffiti to attract visitors.
Figure 10. Masterpieces, Curated by First Street Green Cultural Park Community, E Houston St., NYC
Figure 12. Tags mural, Commissioned by 198 Allen St. Art Gallery, Allen St., NYC
Conclusion (800-1000)
Without further knowledge about the subcultures, public viewers tend to perceive graffiti in a directive communication manner. The hypothesized relationship between graffiti-ornamentation and public viewers are realized in the certain level, but only when graffiti are presented in an informative manner or artistic way. Viewers would either draw attention to artistically interesting graffiti or to some readable and understandable expressions. Graffiti nowadays represent a flourishing creative and cultural scene, youth, and urbanism (Macdonald, 2002). Some cities have commissioned many graffiti projects and legalized space for graffiti for renovation of old urban areas and other urban development activities. Public viewers often ignore graffiti or take them for granted. A thematic analysis provided insights about the relationship between graffiti and viewers and explained further the manners of interactions and concerns behind their statements. But findings on the differences of individual reactions to graffiti being appreciated and understood imply that people tend to embrace the dominated values in the society. In other words, even though a certain extent of the communication potential of graffiti is realized through people who feel a resonance with graffiti image, the political intention to make people realize alternative discourses in the public space is not fully appreciated and understood. The dominant social norms and orders are still hardly being challenged or adjusted to the diverse composition of the society through graffiti. The public has their own understanding and associations with graffiti and graffiti are detached from the public space and lose their meanings in the official and market controlled discourses.
To sum up, the strong attitudes and complex reactions provoked by encounters with graffiti in urban spaces show that public viewers are more than just passive consumers of graffiti. Rather, I have shown that graffiti communicate with public viewers to elicit complex responses,
namely, (lack of) appreciation and (mis)understanding. Furthermore, I have problematized the conceptualization of graffiti as communicative by demonstrating that graffiti do not always successfully communicate with public viewers, namely when public viewers are ambivalent about graffiti or ignore it. Additionally, graffiti might instead stimulate other communication channels, namely when public viewers use graffiti for self-reflection.
Future research needs to engage with both sides of ornamentation theory – practitioners-graffiti and practitioners-graffiti-viewers. To do so, future research needs to have a long-term, holistic overview of the entire process of producing graffiti, for example, following a graffiti practitioner and his/her works from their conceptualization to their reception by public viewers.
Appendix
A. Respondents, Amsterdam
Number Gender Age Place of Origin Profession
RA-1 F 54 Switzerland Working in Hospital
RA-2 F 27 China Master Student in Social Science RA-3 F 26 Switzerland Master Student in Urban Studies RA-4 M 28 Netherlands Free lancer, illustrator
RA-5 F 31 Iran/Germany Architects RA-6 M 24 Switzerland Craftsman
RA-7 F 23 Hungary Master Student in Social Science RA-8 F 24 France/China Master Student in Social Science
RA-9 F 34 U.S.A NGO project manager
RA-10 M 55 Netherlands Driver coach RA-11 M 33 Netherlands Artist
RA-12 M 35 Netherlands Shop Assistant
RA-13 M 26 Netherlands Student in Psychology
RA-14 F 26 China Master Student in Social Science RA-15 F 27 Columbia Master Student in Psychology RA-16 M 38 Netherlands Accounting
RA-17 M 26 India Master Student in Cybersecurity
RA-18 M 35 U.S.A Marketing Manager
RA-19 F 22 Taiwan Bachelor Student in Finance RA-20 M 23 Netherlands Master Student in Mathematics B. Respondents, NYC
Number Gender Age Place of Origin Profession
RN-1 F 32 U.S.A/China Doctor in Anthropology RN-2 F 28 U.S.A/China Filmmaker
RN-3 F 28 China Social Worker
RN-4 F 21 Canada Student in Sustainable development RN-5 F 23 U.S.A Master Student in Urban Studies
RN-6 M 29 U.S.A Waiter in Café
RN-7 M 25 Indonesia Student in International development RN-8 M 28 U.S.A Master Student in Urban Studies RN-9 F 33 U.S.A Working in a Law company RN-10 M 48 U.S.A/China Shope saleman
RN-11 M 31 U.S.A PhD Candidate
RN-12 F 27 Russia Master Student in Communication
RN-13 M 34 U.S.A Curator/Artist
RN-14 M 30 U.S.A Artist/Musician (Brooklyn)
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