Samantha

Graffiti can be used to express publicly often private ideas, thoughts and beliefs; to personalise and humanise a bland homogenised urban landscape and respond in some way to a globilised world view. The meanings and values associated with these ephemeral signs and signals may provide insights into underlying spatial and temporal patterns of social behaviour, cultural identification and the experience of place. This web blog provides the visual presence for my ongoing PhD research. This project consists of a visual analysis of the illegal graffiti and creative transformation of space in the Marrickville area. It is an attempt to make some formal sense of this transitory phenomena and what these resultant visual messages, spatial and temporal maps reveal about how grafitti artists and writers think, feel and respond creatively and deviantly to the urban landscape in which they reside. This web blog also functions as the creative journal for the project. It provides a public forum for me to express my own private ideas, beliefs and showcase my findings. I am interested in the value of recording my own (and other bloggers) internal dialogue as I continue to photograph and document the changing face of graffiti in this area. I am also interested in what this kind of analysis may reveal about how others perceive, interpret and respond to graffiti and how this relates to the underlying cultural and social landscape.