unGrid

The problem with GTD philosophy is that after reading techniques for 6 hours I’m even more behind schedule and - hey! - its bed time.

Is it street art if it isn’t art?

If I slap a sticker with an illustration on a sign at a street corner, am I fulfilling some of the key concepts of street art?

Appropriation, Agency, Autonomy, and Authorship.

Appropriation: I am appropriating the space. One function (sign) has been replaced by another function (carrier or medium of the message).

Agency: The control over the message. Thinking of Free Agency in Football, the inspiration for the transformation of the sign could have come from anywhere, but the inspiration for me to take action came from me.

Autonomy: What is the message’s inspiration? Is it corporate? Do I care that its corporate if the message has resonance within me?

Authorship: Who defaced the existing sign? What route did it take? The means of authorship is by my hand. The author is me.

So a sticker is dynamic street art.

That’s old hat, but the point I wonder about is what if the message is just text. Is it art if the message doesn’t contain art?

The check against the key concepts holds. The space is appropriated, the agency, Autonomy and Authorship all hold true.

So if it passes this arbitrary test to be recognized as street art, what holds me back from accepting it as street art?

I keep thinking of graffiti of the declaration of independence scratched into a wall. It isn’t art, but its passing along a powerful message. That’s what graffiti is. Messages. I just get caught up in the idea that because it has ‘art’ in the name, it must feature some art.

Graffiti takes 3 parts. The message (literally the message), the medium (a sticker, a tag, a painting), and the transformed medium (that which is transformed by the act of graffiti. The wall. The sign.) Regardless of if its art, the act of transforming an existing space to display a message is graffiti.

Working on The Weekly Enema I’m developing an interest in layout and design.

Watching something like this time lapse layout of a magazine article is fascinating.