what is vandalism?

[inquisitive_socialist]

i tag in my home town, both in legal tunnels, and in any nice but illegal spot that catches my eye. alot of what gets tagged by me and others is just random crap, but some is really well designed stuff. is it art if i sprayed it on the side of a building? am i hurting anyone by doing so? why is it illegal for me to do so? jsut some questions that wonder through my head.

[colonelguppy]

because depending on where you do it, someone else probably won't appreciate your art on their buildings, many people think it looks trashy. personally i wouldn't care if you were good at it, i can't speak for others.

[An archist]

Originally posted by [email protected] 04, 2006 06:50 pm
because depending on where you do it, someone else probably won't appreciate your art on their buildings, many people think it looks trashy. personally i wouldn't care if you were good at it, i can't speak for others.
yeah, some grafiti looks cra^p, but then again, most advertisements look crap too, while there's some really inspired stuff, most grafiti on trains is really good.

[inquisitive_socialist]

i think i would care less, but when i get caught, i get this long, somewhat inspired lecture from the cop about how vandalism hurts those around me, both by putting paint in the air, and by forcing someone to clean it up. but here, we have people who are payed to clean off graffiti. am i not actually jsut creating a job for someone who might otherwise not have one? and paint dissipates very quickly. the only time ive worried about paint fumes and such was when i was painting in tunnels. then i think it might matter, but not on the streets, right?

[Epoche]

Vandalism is a touchy subject. It can be self-defeating. Of course I promote the destruction of corporate property and what have you, but this can often result in workers losing their jobs.

On the other hand, workers will be hired to rebuild what you destroyed.

Its a complicated issue.

Let's say I burn down a business complex. Although I would advise the workers to join me, most are "backward" and ignorant and do not have the courage, and so I end up hurting them in the long run.

As far as grafitti and such, I believe that is self-deafeating as well, since some worker is going to be hired to wash the shit off the walls. Consider this when you decide to vandalise something. Better to destroy something entirely than merely paint your gangsta symbol all over it, no?

[Zero]

If its from the heart I wouldn't care if you tagged my house.

But if its shit like "I WUZ HERE" or "34TH STREET WILL PWN U!" I think you would need to die.

[colonelguppy]

Originally posted by [email protected] 06, 2006 11:54 am
i think i would care less, but when i get caught, i get this long, somewhat inspired lecture from the cop about how vandalism hurts those around me, both by putting paint in the air, and by forcing someone to clean it up. but here, we have people who are payed to clean off graffiti. am i not actually jsut creating a job for someone who might otherwise not have one? and paint dissipates very quickly. the only time ive worried about paint fumes and such was when i was painting in tunnels. then i think it might matter, but not on the streets, right?
a remarkably unnecessary and un-productive job, if thats what you want our society comprised of.

[LuXe]

Hm..

I think its vandalism if it is done against something somebody else holds dare and is their by right against their will.

Otherwise, I have been to Oslo. Lots of good grafitti there. (All of which have been painted with the permission of the owners)

[inquisitive_socialist]

i mean, its not like i can walk up to the dean of a university and ask if he minds while i spray paint pictures of violence towards authority, and slogans for food not bombs and other action groups. i got my last vandalism charge for starting what would have been a 13 foot mural of the college i was at being bombed. i dont think im gonna garner any support for my "artistic expression"

[cormacobear]

Any obviously politically motivated graffitti on private property or corperate property is a commendable act act and a non-violent protest. Damaging public property is counterproductive as those spaces are collectively owned.

And if it's not obviously politically motivated then it's just juvenile and a pointless risk.

and tell the cops that the side of a building is a well ventelated place just like it says in the instructions

If they don't want people spraypainting outside they should arrest spray can manufacturers

[VonClausewitz]

I always that that petty vandalism and graffiti was nothing more than childish crime. IF you're really that stuck for something to do - get a job. If you're trying to get across some kind of message by annoying local authorities - it doesn't work, it just puts an image of the juvenile spray-paint type into the general mind-set. It might be terrible time-consuming, and you might think that it's doing something, but in the end, whether it's smashing up a bus stop or 'tagging' a train, it's just irritating, makes the place look a mess, and does nothing for whichever cause you've signed up to.

[cormacobear]

Transfers a portion of the owners wealth to the labourer who cleans it. One thing acheived

secondly it inspires interst and keeps an issue in the minds of potentialy millions. Every large city i've ever visited has had a che quevera mural.

If it didn't work advertising companies wouldn't spend billions on billboards posters and ads wallpapering virtually every urban surface.

[VonClausewitz]

"Transfers a portion of the owners wealth"...

You mean when the local council hires a company to clean the place up ? It's the public money being spent, because in most cases, the council has a responsibility to clean up criminal acts - something most businessess don't have to do themselves, since they don't cause the mess. At least it usually goes that way in this country; It just costs the taxpayer to clean.

I think that we can quite safely say that professional advertising is a tad different to some chap with a couple of tins of spray paint, both in terms of ability and in terms of their image in the public eye. Also, I must have missed the Che pictures in most of the cities of Britain and Western/Northern Europe that I've visisted. Perhaps they're only common in certain areas near to yourself ? It's an interesting phenomenon at any rate.

Same goes for graffiti 'artists' - they sometimes are given legal space to play around with, since there is obviously an audience in that area for that kind of thing, if there is no legal provision, then it's fairly likely that the locals view it as nothing more than petty crime.

[colonelguppy]

Originally posted by [email protected] 08, 2006 06:43 am
Transfers a portion of the owners wealth to the labourer who cleans it. One thing acheived

secondly it inspires interst and keeps an issue in the minds of potentialy millions. Every large city i've ever visited has had a che quevera mural.

If it didn't work advertising companies wouldn't spend billions on billboards posters and ads wallpapering virtually every urban surface.
yes pay people to do highly unnecessary and unproductive jobs, how noble

[bcbm]

Originally posted by colonelguppy+December 08, 2006 11:39 am--> (colonelguppy @ December 08, 2006 11:39 am)
[email protected] 08, 2006 06:43 am
Transfers a portion of the owners wealth to the labourer who cleans it. One thing acheived

secondly it inspires interst and keeps an issue in the minds of potentialy millions. Every large city i've ever visited has had a che quevera mural.

If it didn't work advertising companies wouldn't spend billions on billboards posters and ads wallpapering virtually every urban surface.
yes pay people to do highly unnecessary and unproductive jobs, how noble [/b]
Like most white-collar work isn't? :rolleyes:

[colonelguppy]

Originally posted by black banner black gun+December 08, 2006 01:35 pm--> (black banner black gun @ December 08, 2006 01:35 pm)
Originally posted by [email protected] 08, 2006 11:39 am

[email protected] 08, 2006 06:43 am
Transfers a portion of the owners wealth to the labourer who cleans it. One thing acheived

secondly it inspires interst and keeps an issue in the minds of potentialy millions. Every large city i've ever visited has had a che quevera mural.

If it didn't work advertising companies wouldn't spend billions on billboards posters and ads wallpapering virtually every urban surface.
yes pay people to do highly unnecessary and unproductive jobs, how noble
Like most white-collar work isn't? :rolleyes: [/b]
yeah, it really isn't, management type jobs aid in the production process. creating graphiti and then cleaning it up gets you no where.

[t_wolves_fan]

Originally posted by [email protected] 04, 2006 06:48 pm
i tag in my home town, both in legal tunnels, and in any nice but illegal spot that catches my eye. alot of what gets tagged by me and others is just random crap, but some is really well designed stuff. is it art if i sprayed it on the side of a building? am i hurting anyone by doing so? why is it illegal for me to do so? jsut some questions that wonder through my head.
You're 18 years old and you don't understand why painting something on other people's stuff is so bad?

How would you react if you woke up in the morning and I had painted something on your living room wall without your permission or knowledge?

[Alexander Hamilton]

There was recently on one of the NPR programs a discussion of this very issue, with a famous "public art" painter, who has done many of the murals on Los Angeles street and freeway areas.

Everyone was in agreement that permission was at the key of the success in the field. Of course many also agreed that there were a lot of very good grafiti artists "out there".

The program focussed on what it took to maintain such pieces (like the marathon runners painted in Los Angeles along the freeways) and the big issue, how long these pieces should be allowed to be maintained. The greatest of these is the painting of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra members, all in formal atire. If you've been to LA, you can't miss it.

But this is a far cry from an admitted vandal. Obviosly one can be punished for bringing damage to the community. Most of the stuff I've seen involves people obsessed with painting their own name all over everything. It looks pathetic. Especially when you reflect how low one must feel to have to see their name scrawled everywhere.

To the idiot who wrote he loves it when corporate property is destroyed: You're an idiot. You wouldn't have the internet or countless other benefits without corporate property. I understand why misguided people choose to work for Marxism, but the destruction of things beneficial to people is a sad notioin.

A. Hamilton

[bcbm]

yeah, it really isn't, management type jobs aid in the production process.

You obviously view them as neccessary to the functioning of a capitalist economy, and indeed they are, but in a more basic sense they are completely worthless jobs as they don't really produce anything.


Most of the stuff I've seen involves people obsessed with painting their own name all over everything. It looks pathetic. Especially when you reflect how low one must feel to have to see their name scrawled everywhere.


Tagging culture arose in reaction to consumer culture and quite obviously borrows heavily from it.

[cecieby]

Originally posted by colonelguppy+December 06, 2006 06:28 pm--> (colonelguppy @ December 06, 2006 06:28 pm)
[email protected] 06, 2006 11:54 am
i think i would care less, but when i get caught, i get this long, somewhat inspired lecture from the cop about how vandalism hurts those around me, both by putting paint in the air, and by forcing someone to clean it up. but here, we have people who are payed to clean off graffiti. am i not actually jsut creating a job for someone who might otherwise not have one? and paint dissipates very quickly. the only time ive worried about paint fumes and such was when i was painting in tunnels. then i think it might matter, but not on the streets, right?
a remarkably unnecessary and un-productive job, if thats what you want our society comprised of. [/b]
here in frisco the people who clean things sweep streets etc are slaves who are 'earning' there welfare checks. there used to be great (i mean fine and beautiful signed with famous names) walls of legal graffiti semi legal abandon builings walls of parking lots---these pictures were destroyed by volenteer vandals will battle ship grey paint furnish by the city. they had no intrest in ''cleaning up' but merely smearing a little paint on the faces and middle of the work. it disgusting' cops reasoning that you are doing harm is shabby compared to the real harm of shutting down the voices of us who don't own nedi outlets.

[colonelguppy]

You obviously view them as neccessary to the functioning of a capitalist economy, and indeed they are, but in a more basic sense they are completely worthless jobs as they don't really produce anything.

your right, they don't. they just augment the production process by effectively utilizing capital and labor. so in a sense, they do produce something.

[colonelguppy]

Originally posted by cecieby+December 08, 2006 08:55 pm--> (cecieby @ December 08, 2006 08:55 pm)
Originally posted by [email protected] 06, 2006 06:28 pm

[email protected] 06, 2006 11:54 am
i think i would care less, but when i get caught, i get this long, somewhat inspired lecture from the cop about how vandalism hurts those around me, both by putting paint in the air, and by forcing someone to clean it up. but here, we have people who are payed to clean off graffiti. am i not actually jsut creating a job for someone who might otherwise not have one? and paint dissipates very quickly. the only time ive worried about paint fumes and such was when i was painting in tunnels. then i think it might matter, but not on the streets, right?
a remarkably unnecessary and un-productive job, if thats what you want our society comprised of.
here in frisco the people who clean things sweep streets etc are slaves who are 'earning' there welfare checks. there used to be great (i mean fine and beautiful signed with famous names) walls of legal graffiti semi legal abandon builings walls of parking lots---these pictures were destroyed by volenteer vandals will battle ship grey paint furnish by the city. they had no intrest in ''cleaning up' but merely smearing a little paint on the faces and middle of the work. it disgusting' cops reasoning that you are doing harm is shabby compared to the real harm of shutting down the voices of us who don't own nedi outlets. [/b]
why did they paint them over if it was a legal area? seems like a waste of recources.

[Alexander Hamilton]

Banner-Gun:

You wrote:


Tagging culture arose in reaction to consumer culture and quite obviously borrows heavily from it.

This is a very clever observation. I agree with you 110%.

[Fawkes]

This is to Alexander Hamilton:

You obviously know very little about Hip-Hop/Graffiti culture. When you think of graffiti, you most likely think of spray paint on walls or trains in urban areas. The first person to really do this a lot was a New Yorker who went by the pseudonym of Taki 168. Graffiti as we know it started with people spraying their names everywhere. Now, think for a moment, why on earth would people want to just spray their names everywhere? It's because most of the people who were and still are doing it are people from the inner-city who feel that society views them as just another screw in the machine. They feel that, rather than viewing them as people, society views them as numbers. When people go out and spray paint their names on trains or on buildings, they're doing much more than saying what their name is, they're shouting to the world that "I EXIST!" They are fed up with being viewed as being nothing more than something from which labor can be extracted from, which is why they spray their names to show that they are not just mindless drones, but that they are in fact real people with real names and real lives.

[encephalon]

Vandalism is your genetic material on the wall of humanity.

[Johnny Anarcho]

It’s amazing that so many insurrectional anarchists allow themselves to be drawn into energy-draining, rhetorical debates with liberals who attempt to turn strategic issues into moralistic ones, i.e. their attempts to define property destruction and economic sabotage as “violent”, and thus, control the rage of those who have clearly identified their oppressors and who are rising up against their rule. Reverence for property is loyalty to capitalism and to the values of the system that some of us are serious about destroying, not reforming. We know that our enemy worships property, and that the source of their power - in the world that they’ve created - is their stolen property and wealth and we have no reverence whatsoever for anything the system uses to oppress us. If we’re attempting a genuine jailbreak out of the prison of this society, if we’re ready to make a move on our oppressors while there is still time, then we have to strike blows against them that hurt, and this is not going to be accomplished through voting or peace vigils. Our enemy - the industrial mega-machine - has to be weakened before it can be completely destroyed, and this can be very effectively accomplished by striking ruthless, crippling blows at the System’s key, strategic pressure points, with the intent of impairing the industrial cancers’ ability to spread and replicate itself. Movements like the Earth Liberation Front have demonstrated that economic sabotage can be effective in forcing specific industries out of business; our task now is to put this system in it’s totality out of business.

[RevMARKSman]

You're 18 years old and you don't understand why painting something on other people's stuff is so bad?

How would you react if you woke up in the morning and I had painted something on your living room wall without your permission or knowledge?

If it looked cool, I'd let it go. I don't use my wall for any special purposes.

But if it was a political message opposing mine, I'd paint over it with my own political message.