Looking at the Writing on the Wall: A Critical Review and Taxonomy of Graffiti Texts

16 Pages·0.155 MB·English

by  Gadsby Jane M.

A Critical Review and Taxonomy of Graffiti Texts http://www.graffiti.org/faq/critical.review.html
Looking at the Writing on the Wall: A
Critical Review and Taxonomy of Graffiti
Texts
© copyright 1995 Jane M. Gadsby [email protected]
This essay is a work in progress and will be added to as I uncover more texts. The
review and taxonomy will be forming part of my master's thesis. If you use this text in
any form, please be sure to properly cite me as a reference and I would appreciate it if
you would drop me a line to let me know that it was useful to you. Please feel free to
contact me if you have any questions or additional texts for this work. Thanx!
Looking at the Writing on the Wall
Graffiti abounds in the world around us. It's visible on almost every conceivable
surface, even on some that defy all logic. With the bounty of such material to draw
on, graffiti has become a logical focus for many scholars from a variety of different
disciplines. Attitudes towards graffiti have a wide variance. Varnedoe and Gopnik
(1990) compare art and graffiti in their book. They see graffiti "as a whole is a
composite phenomenon, part childish prank, part adult insult" (77). Abel and Buckley
(1977) take an entirely different stance. They look at the writing of graffiti as a
psychological phenomenon, "a form of communication that is both personal and free
of everyday social restraints that normally prevent people from giving uninhibited
reign to their thoughts" (3). I have reviewed over a hundred texts on the subject of
graffiti and the diversity in viewpoints range from graffiti as amusing (and/or
annoying) to graffiti as a significant linguistic event.
With such a wide variety of research available, it would seem that a system for
reviewing or categorising these texts is badly needed. With this in mind, my intentions
for this essay are as follows:
1. Define "graffiti"
2. Discuss graffiti research (a critical review of some of the texts with regards to
the problems in graffiti research)
3. Categorise the methodological approaches
4. Look at what the future holds for the study of graffiti
What is Graffiti?
The word "graffiti" is the plural of the Italian word "graffito" which means
scratchings. "The word is related, both linguistically and in content, with the name of
a particular technique of mural painting, that of 'sgraffito'." The common English
usage of the word has evolved to include just about any type of public writing, "for
which no official provision is made and which are largely unwanted" (Blume 137).
The terminology of the field of study has become imprecise. The word "graffiti" is
now used to mean any wall writing or pictures or symbols or markings of any kind on
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any surface anywhere no matter what the motivation of the writer. This problem was
touched on by Dundes (1966) when he proposed that a separate term be used for
restroom graffiti and since then the term "latrinalia" has come into somewhat common
usage in graffiti research. However, this does not fully encompass all of the different
types of graffiti. For the purposes of this essay, I will be referring to six different
types:
latrinalia
public
folk epigraphy
historical
tags and
humourous
(these types are defined in the taxonomy in Appendix 1).
Discussion of Graffiti Research
The 1970s were halcyon days of graffiti research (see Figure 1). During this time,
researchers from every conceivable discipline were looking at graffiti. This has
resulted in a tremendous archive of graffiti data just ripe for analysis. (Note: The
graph below is based on the texts listed in the bibliography.)
There are two main problems with the texts written on graffiti. First is the multiplicity
of different approaches used. In reviewing the texts on the subject, I found that there
were nine different approaches being employed. This diversity can be a strength if
used properly. Viewing any subject from varying angles ensures a thorough
investigation of all available material. However, without connections between the
approaches, such diversity can be daunting and counter-productive. Much of this
variation can be accounted since for many people graffiti just isn't a serious field of
study. This attitude has plagued researchers who have learned to walk a tightrope
between desiring to do "serious" scientific research, such as Regina Blume's look at
graffiti as a model of communication, and knowing that for many graffiti is merely
entertaining.
These variances in attitudes may also be the cause of the second problem, that many
of the texts arrive at arbitrary and/or subjective conclusions. Some of these texts are
written up in an extremely light-hearted, cavalier manner with pithy titles and
captions using only the intuition of the author of the text as analytical resource (such
as Reisner, 1977). Others, however, are written as serious studies but the researchers
make leaps in logic that are not supported by the data (for example Landy and Steele,
1967). I will discuss these two problems in graffiti research separately.
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Nine Approaches
As expected, each researcher chooses the approach which lends itself to fulfilling
his/her needs. This has led to a wide array of approaches: cultural, gendered,
linguistic, folkloric, quantitative, aesthetic, motivational, preventative and
popularisation1 Each of these approaches has benefits and detriments. By reviewing
each one we can get a better sense of how each of these texts can be used for further
research.(note 2)
Cultural
The discussion of culture and the practise of everyday life has interested many
modern scholars, including sociologists and anthropologists. In the cultural study of
graffiti, researchers look at graffiti as a representation of a specific community or
ethnic group. They use all available data in reviewing each graffito (i.e., language,
location, etc.) to illuminate the collective everyday life and feelings of the people of
that particular culture. The possible difficulties with this type of approach is that odd
graffiti (material that is completely different from other material) may be taken as
representing a significant portion of the community, rather than just the attitudes of
that particular writer. In other words, the individual is seen as less significant than the
community.
Bushnell (1990) uses graffiti to show what is important to the people in Moscow and
this fascinating book touches on everything from politics to American rock bands. He
uses graffiti as a barometer, a way of measuring the effect of changes on the people of
Moscow. Graffiti has often been used to study culture as they "reflect the nature of
the society that produced them" (Freeman 13). Castellón (1978) and Cohan (1975)
examine contemporary graffiti as significant representations of the specific cultures
they were studying. The cultural approach has also been utilised by archaeological
researchers of folk epigraphy such as Lang (1974 and 1976), who focused on the
Athenian Agora and Lindsay (1960) who looked at Pompeii in its final days.
Gendered
Many researchers find that because restrooms segregate the population by gender,
they can study the gender based differences in latrinalia without having to try and
guess the gender of the writer. The gendered approach rarely seems to look for
similarities between genders but rather focuses on the differences. Bruner and Kelso
(1980) reviewed various quantitative studies on graffiti and conclude that there are
indeed differences based on gender:
An inspection of the surface text reveals that male and female
restroom graffiti differ in two major respects. The first is tha
women's graffiti are more interactive and interpersonal; one wom
will raise a question and others will provide a string of respon
and serious replies. . . . Men write about sexual conquests, sex
prowess and frequency of performance. . . . Women's graffiti are
conversational and deal with relationships; men's are more
individualistic and deal with isolated sex acts and organs.
(242-243)

This type of analysis rarely take additional aspects (such as culture or location) into
consideration. Cole (1991) and Hentschel (1987) also use the gendered approach to
analyse latrinalia and come to much the same conclusions as Bruner and Kelso. It
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should be noted that also included in gendered analysis are discussions of sexual
orientation, such as was done by Sechrest and Flores (1969).
Linguistic
Just as the term implies, the linguistic approach is based on the language used in each
graffito and the way the writer employs that language. One of the most interesting
linguistic studies was done by Grider (1973) involving the con safos graffiti of
Mexican-Americans. These writers use the term con safos or the initials C.S. around
their tags and public graffiti as a form of protection for their writings. "Just as the
reflection in Perseus' shield killed Medusa, it throws the obscenity or slur back upon
the defacer of the graffiti name thus protected" (134). This article deals with the
cultural and linguistic use of the term con safos within the community. Other
examples of linguistic analysis are Niernberg (1983) and Romotsky (1974). Linguistic
analysis is best when used with contextual information from the community where the
graffito was located.
Folkloric
This approach stresses the collection of graffiti as accurately as possible. Sometimes
there is analysis of the data and sometimes there is contextual information provided
but not always. One of the problems with this approach is that sometimes an accurate
accumulation is completed with little analysis of the information. When this happens,
the collection becomes simply archival. Also, these archives contain only the graffiti
which the researcher sees as interesting and rarely is every single graffito recorded.
This selectivity in the collection process diminishes the whole.
Read (1977) travelled to tourist attractions across the United States (mostly national
parks) in the late 1920s and recorded the folk epigraphy he found. He provided little
contextual information for these graffiti but he carefully documented the date and
location for each graffito. His motivation was to preserve these writings for posterity.
Without contextual information, the only aspect of the graffiti in Read's collection
that can be analysed is the words themselves. Blake (1981) and Fraser (1980) are
other examples of the folkloric approach.
It should be noted that many of the collections of graffiti that were published for
primarily entertainment reasons can also be considered as folkloric since they record
graffiti that may otherwise have been lost. Usually the collected graffiti fall into the
humourous category.
Quantitative
This approach is basically one of crunching numbers. Little or no contextual
information is provided and usually the researchers are studying differences in graffiti
based on content or gender or some other measurable quality. Bates and Martin
(1980) found sixteen separate graffiti content categories on the campus of University
of Massachusetts. Their statistical evaluation of the collected graffiti detailed how
many responses were pro or con regarding a particular subject and there is further
breakdown based on gender. Other quantitative researchers include Bess et al (1976)
and Deiulio (1973).
Aesthetic
What is art and what is graffiti? Aesthetic analysis looks at the artistic qualities of
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graffiti. There are many common factors between public graffiti and art. Varnedoe
and Gopnik (1990) draw comparisons between graffiti art and the works of Marcel
Duchamp and Jean Dubuffet. Robinson (1990) documents the subway graffiti art of
the SoHo district of New York and its artistic connection to the broader cultural
implications of Hip Hop. Usually those texts which engage in the aesthetic approach
to graffiti are beautifully illustrated with wonderful photographs.
Motivational
Why do people write graffiti? Motivational analysis tries to answer this question. It
tends to examine the mind of the individual writing the graffito, rather than an entire
culture or community, then look for patterns between all writers to find a common
denominator. This approach is often used in conjunction with the preventative
approach, but not always. Many of the psychologists researching graffiti use this
approach (for example, Abel and Buckley, 1977).
Blume (1985) has created categories for the various motivations for writing graffiti
(143-145). Basically, she found there were two main groupings with eight
sub-groupings beneath them. I have created a diagram to illustrate her concepts and
marked it as Figure 2. Her model is one of the few laid out with clarity and accuracy.
Part of the problem with much of the motivational research is that much of the
conclusions are subjective or that there is little consistency in terminology or
approach. There could be a great deal of improvement in motivational analysis of
graffiti by following the Blume model.
Preventative
Many law enforcement agencies, politicians and concerned citizens want to find a
way to prevent graffiti because of either the negative atmosphere it creates or the
dollar value of the damage caused. The preventative approach often entails research
into which surfaces discourage people from writing graffiti. This approach is the only
one of the nine I have outlined in this article that takes the stance that graffiti is a
disease that needs to be eliminated. Coffield's book (1991) proposes many different
ways to prevent graffiti in Britain including Neighbourhood Watch programs,
improved housing programs and education while still recognising the artistic factors
involved in the creation of graffiti. Glazer (1979) and Stewart (1987) also deal with
the prevention of graffiti.
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Popularisation
Humour books are very popular and one need only check out the local bookstore to
see why publishers want to print humourous material. This category really isn't a
approach since most often it is just a collection of graffiti provided to entertain the
reader. Both of Colombo's books (1975 and 1983) fall into this category. Rarely are
the locations of graffiti listed, except in very vague terms, and there is no contextual
information, just subjective commentary from the author. The books are quite
amusing as they were designed to be, but there usually is not enough information on
the writings or their surroundings for the collection to be used for anything other than
entertainment.
I have found that the most thorough examinations have employed two or more
approaches. For example, Davies (1985) uses gendered, linguistic, folkloric and
motivational approaches and the result is a thorough and thought provoking article. I
have categorised all of the one hundred and seven texts that I analysed by their
methodological approaches and created Figure 3 to illustrate the most commonly used
approaches. As you can see, the folkloric approach has by far been used by more
scholars to date. However, as will be discussed later in this essay, that appears to be
changing.
Subjectivity in Research
One example of an arbitrary conclusion appears in Landy and Steele's article "Graffiti
as a Function of Building Utilization" (1967).(note 3) These researchers review their
quantitative findings and conclude that specialised graffiti were found more often in
specialised buildings rather than buildings with a more general use. This is quite
logical based on their research. However, they don't stop there. They add the
following statement:
Male toilet rooms had writing on almost all the walls, doors and
cracks between tiles, on vertical and horizontal planes and were
generally dirtier than female toilet rooms in the same buildings
The absence of graffiti and the greater evidence of smoking in f
toilet rooms might reflect the need for phallic expression (Land
1967). Whereas males act out this need by creating graffiti, fem
smoke it out! (712)
This conclusion has no support from the data they gathered and is, quite frankly, just
the opinion of the researchers. With no other data to draw on, they make a completely
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arbitrary link between females leaving cigarette butts in their restrooms and their
"needing" phallic expression. (note 4)
Arbitrary conclusions such as the one detailed above stem from trying to analyse
graffiti in isolation with little or no contextual information. Reisner (1967) collected
graffiti from restrooms from cities all over the United States and categorised it in
chapters like "Sarcasm and Cynicism" or "Homosexual Billets-Doux." His choices for
what goes into what category are subjective--he provides no contextual information
other than the location of the graffiti. In the chapter entitled "Braggadocio" he gives
his opinion on the graffiti in that chapter:
Most boasts are written by people who are lonely, who are perhap
unappreciated socially and at work. "See," they are saying, "the
world doesn't know what it's missing!" But true or untrue, silly
sad or sick, the boasts are just begging for a put-down--and get
(49)
Reisner makes a lot of assumptions, especially considering he has not spoken to any
of the graffiti writers (or if he has, it is not documented). The commentary he provides
is just his opinion based on what he reads into the graffiti. The difficulty with this type
of assessment is that he can only read from his point of view and from his own
experience. The writer's life experiences may be completely different from the
researchers so the only way to truly understand the meaning behind the graffito is to
either speak to the writer or to accumulate enough appropriate contextual information
so that an accurate estimation can be made.
Lets take one of the pieces of graffiti that Reisner lists under the above description--"I
have crabs." This graffito was found in a women's restroom and, according to the
chapter heading, this is considered as "braggadocio." But was the woman who wrote
this really bragging? That is possible but it is also likely that this was a cry for help or,
even more likely, someone trying to start a conversation to get advice (see Appendix
1 for more information on conversational graffiti). Considering the conclusions of
many of the people doing gendered research (such as Cole or Hentschel), it is quite
likely that this is the case. However, Reisner has only looked at this graffito from his
own point of view and since he is neither a member of the community nor a woman,
his opinion is uninformed and subjective.
Categorising Graffiti Research
Above I have discussed various types of graffiti and the nine different approaches
used for studying the subject. In the taxonomy in Appendix 1, I have taken one
hundred and seven texts on graffiti and categorised them according to the approaches
used, the type of graffiti analysed and the year the text was published.(note 5) My
purpose in doing this to provide a tool for other researchers, enabling them to find
texts dealing primarily within their fields of interest. I have found that some people
are interested only in quantitative research while others want anything dealing with
tagging. By using the chart, one can focus on latrinalia of the 1970s or on the folkloric
texts. In my own research it has become apparent that because the word "graffiti"
encompasses such a broad range of writings that specific research is quite difficult and
time consuming. It is my hope that this chart will make the process simpler and more
thorough for others. It should be noted, however, that for this chart I have only used
texts printed in English. There is a plethora of texts in other languages, but,
unfortunately, I do not read any other language but English. The bulk of the research
appears to be in English or German.
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What the Future Holds
I can see two main facets missing from most of the research to date. The first and
foremost missing element that I will discuss is what I will call the sociolinguistic
approach. Secondly, I will look at the great need for interaction between graffiti
researchers from around the world.
The Sociolinguistic Approach
Folklorist Moira Smith (1986) really nails down the problem with most of the
research--the lack of contextualisation. "Scholarly studies of graffiti can be divided
into two camps: those which treat the material completely but indirectly and those
which look at the texts directly but selectively" (100). I see the blending of these as
sociolinguistic. This entails taking a linguistic event (such as the writing of a graffito)
and then working outwards to incorporate other graffiti events, cultural facts, local
customs, and anything that would have influenced the writer of that graffito. It is only
in this way that researchers can really come close to understanding the writer since in
most cases we have no access to the minds of these people.
I know of one graffiti incident that occurred here on the York University campus that
shows the importance of the sociolinguistic approach. A Women's Studies course met
in a classroom in Vanier college weekly. During a class, one of the women looked up
and noticed that written in chalk on light fixture were the words "cunt blood." They
pointed this out to the professor who, at the end of the class while many of the
students were watching, climbed up on a desk and changed this graffito to read "cunt
blood is sacred," presenting her class with a visual demonstration of reclamation.
Let's just surmise that long after this class has left the room, a graffiti researcher (like
myself) was to happen upon this phrase without any of the story behind it. I would
start by looking carefully at this graffito to ascertain that, by the different handwriting,
it was written by two different people. While I wouldn't know that a professor had
added the ending, I would be able to determine that there were two different
motivations at work here. The language used is quite significant as words like "sacred"
are not thrown around easily by the majority of the York population. By checking the
schedule for that particular classroom, I would find that a Women's Studies class met
there and may be able to piece together much more of the possibilities concerning this
graffito. It would also be important to look at the timing of this writing. If this
appeared close to December 6, it is possible that the second writer was influenced by
the recollection of the Montreal Massacre, the commemoration of which is observed
by many on campus. There are many, many more aspects that could be connected to
this particular linguistic event but I think the point is made--it is impossible to look at
the event in isolation without all of the contextual information as that would lead to
the subjective opinions discussed earlier.
While there are few articles presently available that incorporate the sociolinguistic,
the good news is that changes are happening. In the articles I studied for this essay, I
found only three that pursue research that employ the concepts outlined by Smith
(1986). Those texts are by Birch Moonwomon (1992), Catherine Davies (1985) and
Urs Dürmüller (1988). However, more recent articles are getting closer and closer,
such as the articles by Cole (1991) or Hentschel (1987) or Erickson (1987). And what
better way to usher in this change then with that modern technological wonder--the
computer.
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The Information Superhighway
Recently I responded to a posting on the internet and discovered that there are many
other people working in my field. This was quite a revelation! I've spent years
studying this topic on my own with only textual sources for information and thinking
that I must be incredibly odd for even considering graffiti a serious subject for
research. Suddenly I was connected with other researchers and exchanging resources.
So much is shared across cyberspace and anyone looking at graffiti should be aware
of the newsgroup alt.graffiti (note 6), and the most exciting development of all, Art
Crimes on the World Wide Web, where actual photographs of graffiti are posted and
categorised by location. The graffiti artists also post comments or advice and answer
questions in the discussion formats provided and, in a unique spirit of co-operation,
the observers and the observees work in tandem while still maintaining the anonymity
the artists often desire.
With all of this technology available at our fingertips, graffiti scholars can now
discover similarities and differences, share insights and generally improve the quality
of the research produced. While the 1970s may have seen an explosion of graffiti
research, it is likely the 1990s will go even further on a much more global scale. This
is an exciting time!
Graffiti has been around for thousands of years and is not likely to disappear in the
foreseeable future. Hougan (1972) suggests that people in authority would learn more
from reading the restroom walls then by taking a poll. My research into graffiti at
York University would seem to reinforce this. When some event or problem troubles
the community (such as the Montreal Massacre, the Gulf War or even the general
hatred directed towards the campus food services), these anxieties manifest
themselves in graffiti. This is the great strength of graffiti research, that it enables us
to tap into the minds of everyday people and discover people or ideas that may
otherwise be silenced.
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