“I am not just doing hip-hop, I AM hip-hop and I cannot tolerate wackness”
The average New Yorker sees upwards of fifty pieces of graffiti a day. But they never stop to think about the stories behind those pieces. This is one of those stories.
Having resided in the UK for the duration of my young life, I have yet to make my first journey across the pond to sample the world that Jean Baudrillard described as being ‘completely rotten with wealth, power, senility, indifference, Puritanism and mental hygiene, poverty and waste, technological futility and aimless violence’. I am, of course, referring to George Dubya’s good ol’ You-Ess-of-A. However, as a self-proclaimed hip-hop aficionado, I am familiar with the four pillars of hip-hop as perpetually propounded by the blast-master KRS-One: DJing, MCing, B-Boying and, of course, Graffiti.
So, it was with baited breath that I sat down to watch Adam Bhala Lough’s dramatic foray into New York’s burgeoning graffiti scene, Bomb the System, which is apparently the first feature length film in over twenty years to focus on the subject of graffiti (word to Wild Style).
It also cost less to make than it costs to buy an average-sized property in one of the many rundown areas of London ($500K/£250K). The movie was first screened at various film festivals in 2002 and later hit American theatres in 2005. As far as I am aware, Bomb the System has not been screened in the UK, but for at some smaller art house theatres that advertise their showings only by carrier pigeon or telekinesis. No matter, for as well as being familiar with the four pillars of hip-hop, I am also familiar with BitTorrent and managed to find a DVD rip of the film online. Ah, the wonders of the interweb.
useless fact #4
Shortly after Bomb the System’s limited theatrical release in the United States, a cinema in Delaware was closed down and both the police and bomb squad were called to attend the cinema. The reason? Because the manager found a sticker saying ‘Bomb the System’ in the cinema. Cultural misunderstanding or not, some people should really be executed at birth.
Graffiti: the only art form that can be considered a crime
It is widely documented that graffiti emerged in the 1970s in New York City and quickly made the transition from ‘vandalism’ to ‘street art’, perhaps primarily due to the sheer volume of pieces that appeared around the city. In the 1980s, graffiti went some way to being semi-legalized and even crossed over into the lofty realm of ‘high culture’ thanks to its inclusion in the works of artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat. It seemed, for a fleeting moment, that graffiti would finally be recognised as a bona fide art form and not merely a form of nuisance championed by the great unwashed. However, such recognition was quickly curtailed as graffiti was reigned in and sent back underground by Rudi ‘little Hitler’ Giuliani and his straight-out-of-a-Batman-comic-named ‘NYPD Vandal Squad’ in the 1990s. Accordingly, despite its interesting and varied history, graffiti has not been given much of a cinematic makeover over the years.
To this end, Rolling Stone called Bomb the System a ‘next-gen update of 1983’s Wild Style’ that has ‘strong whiffs of [Danny Boyle’s] Trainspotting and [Larry Clark’s] Kids’, as well as distinguishing itself with ‘streaky, Krylon-bright editing and El-P’s eerie soundtrack beats’. As an aside, El-P is the bomb (pause) and I have included a link to a version of the score, ripped straight from the DVD no less, at the end of this post (courtesy of CCWM). Village Voice similarly concluded that the movie was birthed from a ‘blunt-fueled blend of Aronofskian frenzy [read: Darren Aronofsky of Requiem for a Dream and Pi fame] and nostalgia for the agreeable griminess of mid-90s Wu-Tang Clan videos’. Which reminds me, does anyone else remember just how good Wu-Tang’s video for Protect Ya Neck was, back in the day?! The New York Times even contributed its two cents by noting that:
the movie runs on the synergy between this grimy but glamorous urban landscape and the emotional intensity of characters, who at moments suggest contemporary descendants of the innocent, tormented teenagers in Rebel Without A Cause.
Any negative comments largely seem to come from out-of-touch conservative (Republican?) reviewers. The New York Post criticized the film for trying to ‘argue that graffiti writers are political artists, not an urban blight’ and Sean Axmaker, in response to the unabashedly positive depiction of graffiti artists in the film, likened the filmmakers to ‘tomcats spraying in their own yard’. Notice the distinct juxtaposition between the intelligent dissections of Rolling Stone et al compared to this twaddle. If in doubt, vote Conservative/Republican, eh?
“Graffiti does not belong in a gallery. It belongs on the streets, where it started from”
In short, Bomb the System follows the misadventures of a group of graffiti artists, living in NYC, who decide to mark their mark on the city’s urban landscape. In the film, Anthony ‘Blest’ Campo, a nineteen year old high school graduate with no ambition, is one of the most notorious (and gifted) artists in NYC. Blest sees the city as his playground and spends his days stealing spray paint from hardware stores and his nights getting high and ‘bombing’ with his crew (which includes Justin ‘Buk 50’ Broady and his younger brother, Kevin ‘Lune’ Broady). Such blatant theft is justified by the fact that ‘real’ graffiti artists apparently steal their tools of the trade, as purchasing them is regarded as a sign of weakness and lack of commitment to the anti-establishment roots of the art form. I will keep that argument in mind next time I am caught boosting from Wal-Mart.
Racking spray paint is the one and only way for a graffiti writer to acquire his tools.
Writers who buy their own cans are considered toys: bitch-made pussies with no heart.
Blest and his crew use graffiti as their primary means of expression, as well as a way of proclaiming their identities. They are motivated solely by the glory of having their work seen and the challenge of circumventing the legal hurdles that they are faced with on a daily basis. Coincidentally, Blest is the most wanted writer on the NYPD Vandal Squad’s hit list, whilst paradoxically featuring as a figure of interest for the local gallery scene.
As the narrative progresses, Blest does his best to avoid the police and hostile rival crews. Then, after Lune, a tagger-in-training, is collared by a corrupt cop and physically abused, Blest’s crew declares war on the police by intensifying their bombing excursions. However, Buk 50 becomes increasingly frustrated by Blest’s apparent preoccupation with his (tagger) girlfriend, Alex, and his lack of commitment to their cause.
Somewhat inevitably, a tragedy leads to a predictable, yet cleverly-executed, climactic twist that suggests martyrdom. However, instead of pulling emotive heartstrings, the sequence will likely leave the average viewer left cold and short-changed.
I adore the lighting, darling, but you have truly made a faux pas with the wallpaper
As a strictly sensual experience, Bomb the System tackles graffiti subculture with an edgy, contemporary and stylish perspective. The drama in is primarily provided via a series of jump cuts and El-P’s post-apocalyptic score (as a Def Jukie myself, I was particularly impressed by this). Further, the cinematography and editing bring urban New York to life with the gritty realism that its subject matter not so much necessitates as it does demands. For instance, the opening segment of the film gives the viewer a breakneck tour of a typical day for Blest, Buk 50 and Lune an impressive split-screen sequence and the narrative itself is strung together by Blest’s streetwise and slang-laden narration.
However, as a substantive experience, Lough fails to take advantage of his potentially avant-garde subject matter and further the political and social exploration of graffiti as both an art form and a culture. Instead, he relies heavily on already established genre stereotypes and narrative clichés. At the heart of Bomb the System lies a conventional bildungsroman tale of friendship, anti-establishment struggle and self-discovery. That the life trajectories of Blest and Buk 50, despite sharing a common start, begin to move in opposite directions is hardly an original concept. Whereas Blest struggles to overcome a family grievance and becomes acutely aware that graffiti culture holds no tangible future for him; Buk 50 is so immersed in the culture that he cannot distance himself from it and view his own life through an objective lens. There are no prizes, therefore, for second-guessing Buk 50’s eventual ‘keep it real’/’sell out’ rant later in the film.
If that was not enough, enter the archetypal left-wing girlfriend, Alex, who (true to form) pleads with Blest to direct his skills to something with more substance by incorporating political and anti-corporate messages in his work. Also, that Alex’s work is politically-inclined contrasts sharply with Blest and Buk 50’s mere tagging and undermines their own rationalizations of their need to create art in the form of tags. Indeed, standing beside Alex, their work seems more of an ego trip than an exercise in self-liberation. On the plus side, the actress who plays Alex, Jaclyn DeSantis, is awesome.
At least Blest’s mother, with her ‘why don’t you go to college and make something of yourself’ stance is wholly originally. I believe that this is the point where Will Smith, in his Fresh Prince of Bel Air guise, would say ‘psyche’.
Run home and cry, emo kid
As a protagonist, Blest is also far from ideal and his self-absorption engenders little sympathy for his plight. He is a white boy from suburban Queens and as such there is a sense is that he is essentially slumming in the Manhattan underworld of gonzo art as a homage to his late older brother, who himself was a legendary tagger (‘Lazaro’) who left his signature tag on the Brooklyn Bridge on the night he died. The point is that Blest can, unlike Buk 50, who is on probation and has to clean toilets as part of his community service, if he chooses, escape. His is a visitor. He is not ‘real’. His resistance to the options that The Man can offer him (a potential art school scholarship) and obliviousness to the needs of his friends does little to endear him to the viewer and sharply undercuts the sense of tragedy that Lough evidently aspires to.
New York: so good they named it twice
Bomb the System is a true New York story. Like the city it depicts, it is a fatally flawed and romanticized microcosm of urban life in modern day American society. Despite this, it (spray) paints an unforgettable portrait of the oft misunderstood art form and culture of graffiti – albeit it in the form of a thinly-veiled thesis on the nobility of graffiti versus conforming and giving in to The Man. Whilst it will do little to convince conservative viewers of the merits of graffiti as anything other than mindless vandalism, Lough offers an honest, heartfelt and impassioned cinematic love poem dedicated to the art and merit of graffiti and to the city that gave birth to the art form more than two decades ago. Rudi Giuliani take note: those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable.
posted by Si at 20:09
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During the summer of 2005, I travelled with a small group of friends to the Balearic island of Ibiza (Eivissa, if you are a Catalan and intend on being pedantic) in search of sea, sand, sex and sangria. Whilst the island is oft documented as being a hedonistic playground for underage drinkers and midlife crisis-suffering ageing techno-monkeys, there has never been much focus on how pretty the island itself is. So, to cut a long story short, during the days we took full advantage of our hire car and did a wee bit of sight-seeing. Whilst enjoying a leisurely stroll around Ibiza Town one day, I spotted a quirky stencil design in the corner of my eye.
I really cannot tell you what it was about the design that caught my attention. Maybe it was its neon-colouring. Maybe it was the subtle juxtaposition of the neon-colouring with the chalk-white, typically Balearic, wall. However, if I were I betting man, I would wager that it was probably more down to the fact that the stencil was of a cute, almost anime-looking, wee cat. Man, I am a sucker for all things feline.
A few months later, thanks to Tristan Manco’s Stencil Graffiti, I learned that ‘the wee cat’ was actually called El Gato (‘the cat’, in Spanish, imaginatively enough) and it was the work of an artist who goes by the name of Nano4814 (‘N’ from herein). He originates from Vigo, which is located on the Atlantic coast of Spain, and, to paraphrase his own words, chose the spray-can as his medium of expression in around 1995, having earlier spent the summer of 1991 ‘listening to Public Enemy and first experimenting with a spray can’ through architecting a piece that simply read ‘SEMEN BOYS’. As an aside, in 1995 I was still learning algebra and figuring out the most efficient way of undoing bra-straps.
"I know Ms. Pacman is special. She’s fun. She’s cute. She swallows."
N studied Fine Art at the University of Vigo during a nine-year stretch (1997-2006) that puts even the great Van Wilder’s fictional tenure at Coolidge College to shame. By his own admission, he simply spent his time ‘adding elements to my own particular formula of interacting with the streets’, ‘paid more attention to other things’ rather than his grades and only finished his course out of pure stubbornness: ‘at some point I was told to quit, but I don’t like following the advice of others’.
N attributes his career choice as being the ‘natural evolution’ of his spending all day skateboarding in the streets as a youth. In fact, he considers skateboarding to be his ‘main influence as an artist and as an individual’. N comments:
Seeing streetlife from on top of four wheels gives you another point of view of the city – you see it as something creative – and I think that makes you want to be a part of it; be in everybody’s daily life, watching them from the walls
"Art is a lie that makes us realize truth"
Citing Dr. Stump, a Japanese cartoon, and the crazy world it portrays as one of his influences, N also gets inspiration from ‘music, everyday life or situations that make ideas pop into my head’. It is safe to say, judging by the results that I found for the programme on Google, that Dr. Stump is utterly crackers.
In addition to this, during an interview with Wooster Collective, N also cites ‘truckloads of LSD’ as another of his influences. With this in mind, it is unsurprising that N’s work is based around his own world of similarly bonkers and surreal (normally neon) characters – be they rabbits, cats, kids, cows and all sorts. These he uses to ‘always try and give the viewer something that won’t leave them indifferent’. N firmly believes that sarcasm and humour are important and every one of his characters ‘usually has some story behind them’. For instance, El Choquito ('the squid') is a ‘representation’ of N and the medium that he uses: ‘swimming in the streets, spreading the ink’.
useless fact #3:
N believes that recently his work has been ‘turning more introspective… self-conscious and also less anecdotic’ and that he is currently at a point where the three different lines of work that he had previously undertook meet. His work as a designer has always been detached from his personal work, whilst his work in galleries is increasingly focusing on things that N is concerned about on a personal level. Added to this, N’s work on the streets is ‘becoming more of an escape value that helps me survive in a big city and more tags and throw-ups [rather than] big murals’. The latter signals a return to N’s Vigo origins: simple iconic characters in basic colours in downtown areas.
"Sleep is the cousin of death"
As well as working on his own, N is also a member of Los Niños Especiales (‘the Special Children’), whose work can be found online at www.fotolog.com/los_especialitos.
2007 has been good to Nano4814. Among other things, he spent a month in Toulouse painting for the Rio Loco festival, contributed to the Cultura Urbana festival in Madrid and prepared a show with Equipo Plástico in Seattle.
"You talkin’ to me?"
Despite the fact that N is well known outside of Spain and that he always seems to be busy, he has yet to achieve success in the capital letters sense just yet. Call it a hunch but, to somewhat plagiarize the introduction to N’s interview with Subaquatica, this may have something to do with the fact that he is terrible at self-promotion and does not yet have a proper website through which to sell his wares.
My attitude during all these years of street activity has always been the same: do what pleases me and ignore everyone else. I never worried about documenting or promoting my work. The important thing for me is the action itself: doing and being there at a precise moment, alone or with others, and being able to display on a wall what is in your head
This may have something to do with N, bless his little cotton socks, not liking the term ‘street art’ or ‘street artist’. It gives him ‘the creeps’ as it is a media label and he does not believe in lumping people together by virtue of the fact that their chosen artistic medium is the spray-can, posters or stencils. He does not ‘feel very connected’ with some of his similarly-labeled contemporaries. It follows that, by not proactively self-promoting his work, N is simply comfortable ‘doing’ his work rather than being praised for it. And good for him.
In the meantime, if you want to learn more about this eccentric Spaniard, you could do a lot worse than checking out his MySpace (www.myspace.com/nano4814) and/or his Fotolog profiles (www.fotolog.com/nano4814).
posted by Si at 11:00
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Space Invaders, the arcade game designed by Tomohiro Nishikado in 1978, is the undisputed forerunner of modern video gaming. In short, it is the daddy. In fact, the ‘space invader’ sprites themselves, whilst simplistic in today’s world of Grand Theft Autos et al, have become iconic in their own right – with a quick Google search returning everything from Space Invader t-shirts to belt buckles.
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In October 2005, Nishikado commented during an interview with the England-based videogames magazine, Edge, that the look of the ‘space invaders’ had been based on the description of the alien invaders detailed by H.G. Wells in the (reputedly) classic science fiction story The War of the Worlds. Whilst it would, at first read, be fair to conclude that in 1978 Nishikado was in possession of not only the best crack cocaine that money could buy but also the largest crack pipe, his reasoning behind the designs actually makes sense:
In the story, the alien looked like an octopus. I drew a bitmap image
based on the idea. Then I created several other aliens that look like sea
creatures such as a squid or crab.
useless fact #2:
So, there you have it. Not only did Tomohiro Nishikado create one of the most addictive videogames on the face of the planet – next to Pacman, Pong and Bomberman – he was also a diamond geezer to boot.
What the hell?!
Now, at this point, you would be well within your rights to ask, ‘So what the bally hell does this have to do with graffiti?!’ Well… Space Invaders, as well as bankrupting teenage arcade goers since 1978, also served as the inspiration for a largely anonymous French artist, who is known only by the nom de plume ‘Space Invader’. Clever, huh?
(Camden, London, April 2007 and Near Victoria Station, Manchester, May 2007)
Whilst this ‘Space Invader’ character appears to have the same supplier and crack pipe as Mr. Nishikado (choice quote from his website: “Some people call me a polluter, others say I’m an artists. I prefer to think of myself as an invader!”), I just happen to think that he is a genius.Using ceramic tiles, Space Invader cements together mosaic images inspired by traditional Space Invaders aliens, bonus spaceships and variations of these themes. Most of the mosaic tiles are small (10” x 10”, at a guess) and others are absolutely enormous (a lot bigger than 10” x 10”, I can tell you). Whilst being extremely practical, the use of mosaics also enables Space Invader to keep the ultra-pixelated appearance of each ‘Invader’. The said mosaics are cemented onto building walls, lamp post bases and pretty much anything that cement will stick to.
Take me to your leader (or dealer, as the case may be)
In Space Invader’s own words, the idea is to ‘invade’ cities all over the world ‘with characters inspired by first-generation arcade games, and especially the now classic Space Invaders’. This he does solely by himself and over the course of the last eight years he has travelled to thirty-five cities, spanning all of the continents. Some of the thousands of individual ‘Invaders’ have been documented with photographs on Space Invader’s website.
(Canal Street, Manchester, May 2007 and somewhere in the East End, London, April 2007)
Space Invader’s mosaics do not have a deep political message as such (‘The act in itself is political, as 99% of the time I don’t have authorization’) and he instead emphasises the ‘gaming’ aspect of his actions: ‘I’ve spent the past eight years travelling from city to city with the sole objective of getting a maximum score’. Space Invader then ranks his compositions as being worth between ten and fifty ‘points’, depending on its size, composition and location. From here, each invaded city gives a final ‘score’ that is added to his previous scores.
O.C.D. ahoy!
How does Space Invader know his ‘high score’? Simple. Because each mosaic is different, they are all numbered and indexed. Then selected information is given in the ‘invasion maps’, that Space Invader produces to not only help addicts such as myself retrace the history of a particular invasion, but also to make some pocket money as well.
(Whitworth Street, Manchester, June 2007 and The South Bank, London, April 2007)
It is at this point that it becomes evident that mosaics and cement are not as cheap as crack cocaine in La République Française. At the present date, Space Invader has produced fifteen of these maps, out of a possible thirty-five invaded cities, and they are available to purchase here.
“Plagiarists at least have the quality of preservation”
Whilst Herman Melville banged on about it being ‘better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation’, Space Invader seems to agree with Benjamin Disraeli’s sentiments, commenting that when he is sent pictures of Space Invaders in towns that he has never set foot in, he sees it as a positive thing (a ‘kind of tribute’). Also, whilst he does not ‘encourage this kind of copying’, he does not ‘especially condemn it either’.
Which is a good job really, seeing as lesser attempts at replicating Mr. Invader’s signature style range can range from average at best to darn godawful. Whilst I do not profess to be able to tell the difference on every occasion, a good yardstick to use is: if it looks like it was designed by an autistic amputee and then cemented onto the wall by a blind epileptic, then it is probably the work of a drunk student, ‘inspired’ at quarter-to-five in the morning after a binge at the local discotheque.
What lies above and below
Aside from the fact that the simplistic genius of Space Invader’s designs habitually succeeds in making me draw for my camera at speeds that would put Wild Bill Hickok to shame, the true pleasure in finding a Space Invader design is just that. Finding it. The designs can be half way up buildings, down alleyways, next to ground-level street signs – the list goes on and on. So, personally, I feel slightly proud when I spot one. Sad, I know, but I do not own a metal detector. Nor can I read archaic maps. Such little discoveries are my little pieces of modern treasure and they never fail to brighten up an otherwise dull day.
Next time you are in a big city, look up, look down and prepare to be invaded.
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(Er... Canal Street, Manchester, May 2007)
posted by Si at 11:40
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Title: DJ Bizkid presents... 'All City: Graffiti Theme Music'
Released: August 21st 2007
Genre: Hip-Hop
Tracks: 01
Size: 61,4 MB
Quality: VBR/44,1Hz
TRACKLIST
01 - Graffiti Is... (Introduction)
02 - Tommy Tee - Aerosoul
03 - Blame One & Exile - Pair A Graff'
04 - Taking The Risk (skit)
05 - Artifacts - Wrong Side Of The Tracks
06 - KRS-One - Out For Fame
07 - The Narcissists - Graffiti Writers
08 - Bukue One - For The Graff' Heads
09 - LMNO - Aerosol Migrants
10 - Juice - For My Writers
11 - Looptroop - Ambush In The Night
12 - Artifacts - Return To The Wrong Side
13 - Dr. Becket, K-Skills & El Da Sensei - Creativity
14 - Company Flow - Lune TNS
15 - Bombing (skit)
16 - Beefeaterz - Graff'
17 - Pack FM - Click, Clack & Spray
18 - Boom Bap Project - Writers' Guild
19 - LMNO - Streetwise
20 - Sharlock Poems & Sup The Chemist - Graffiti Art
21 - Garbage (skit)
22 - Qwel - The Manhattan Project
LINK: click here!
posted by Si at 21:25
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Welcome to Existencilism – the blog that does exactly what it says on the tin. Over the last few years, I have collected a vast array of photos of graffiti in its various guises. In fact, if my suspicions are correct, the said collection is now self-perpetuating and I no longer have any control over it. In short: I am a slave to my digital camera.
‘graffiti’ is the plural of ‘graffito’, although I wholeheartedly recommend that you avoid using the latter when trying to play art critic with your friends – for a closed mouth gathers no foot
In any case, I have decided to use this blog as a forum through which not only to share my photos with anyone who is remotely interested, but also try and convince at least one person that there is a lot more to the art of graffiti than idiots writing ‘Sarah has big tits’ on the side of houses inhabited by the elderly. Such wanton lack of imagination frustrates me no end. Not to mention that I know a selection of women named Sarah and none, I repeat none, are well endowed in the mammary department – making such scrawl patent misrepresentation.
(off Brick Lane, London, April 2007)
In the average city, there are hundreds of examples of ‘graffito’ (see, it does sound daft). Whether it is employed to communicate social and politically-loaded messages or simply to exhibit the artistic talents of someone who has chosen to decorate walls over canvas; what is undeniable is that there is a lot more to graffiti than mindless vandalism.
Open your eyes and enjoy the view.
posted by Si at 15:48
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