The writing on the wall. Mike White goes undercover with one of Bristol’s most notorious tagging crews. Additional research: Iris Faraway “Train!” Someone yells. Suddenly we’re vaulting back over a wall, off the tracks. An Intercity thunders past seconds later. ‘Street-inspired art’ is embraced by the establishment, beloved by the hoi polloi. To make one’s mark is an impulse that’s at least 40,000 years old; it’s the origin of all visual art. The anti-tagging stance is well-rehearsed. DBK used to call themselves Def Bombin Krew, now they’re the Dirty Bristol Kids. “Tagging’s basically just getting your name everywhere – you’ve just gotta bomb it. As we walk, he goes on to describe how tagging turns the city into a story with you as a central character, it creates a kind of memory map; every reach caught has a tale behind it. Most people can’t or won’t see that.
The arbitrariness of aesthetic policing is the bête noire of the modern tagger. What does tagging bring to the city? Is tagging really so bad? “A prática do Graffiti no Rio de Janeiro: uma etnografia” Interviews, Articles, and Research. Graffiti: Some Observations and Speculations* GRAFITAGEM: RESISTÊNCIA E CRIAÇÃO | Rink (Mestranda) | Revista Tamoios. Index. Street Art: The Transfiguration of the Commonplaces - RIGGLE - 2010 - The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. Index. Silva-e-Silva.