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PRESIDIO OF MONTEREY, Calif. -- The 2014 Korean Hangul Day Award Ceremony for the Yonsei University Writing Contest and the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center Korean Video Contest was held inside the Tin Barn Oct.9. This year’s award recipients representing DLIFLC were: Seaman Lexus Porter, Airman 1st Class Daniel Krall, Pfc. Brent Faurie, Airman 1st Class Richard Vanoverloop, Staff Sgt. Darren Cohen, Staff Sgt. Richard Rah, Airman 1st Class Taylor Purvis, Capt. Todd Boese, Capt. Harper Foley, Pfc. Ollice Page and Airman 1st Class Tommaso Carli. DLIFLC has participated for more than a decade in partnership with the Yonsei University Alumni Association of Southern California. The contest is open to all non-native speakers learning Korean and is used to promote the continuing study and development of the foreign language learning of Korean.
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Photo by Michael Beaton, Presidio of Monterey Public Affairs.
Tuesday April 15th 2008
Get on at Riccarton, 6.04pm.
University campus, a statue hit by sunlight. Not understanding many different languages. An oversize crow sitting on a silver birch. A man in a purple shirt leans against his car in a car park covered in scattered stones. Through the Park and Ride and along to a field, new crops and a rectangle marked out with thin sticks. Cross the bypass. An immediate line of traffic builds up. On the ledge in front someone has shaped Blu-Tac into an almost flower. A pub in Sighthill and people are sitting on benches outside as if it's warm, and one towerblock clearly condemned, lengths of wood protrude from the base of the raised first floor like its bones. Past the turn off for the prison. Stop in the dark under a railway bridge, and the small doorway to Gorgie Gospel Hall. An amusement arcade and behind the frosted glass window Christmas type lights blink on blue and green and red. A man says "Stimulus response". Down at Haymarket someone has tied a Sainsbury's carrier bag around their bicycle saddle to keep it from rain. In a thick French accent a girl says "Ridicule!". And another girl sits on her own in the window of a pizza restaurant. Now the sun is less. A photograph of a model in a clothes shop whose face is obscured by scaffolding. A repetitive drum beat. Concrete. Tulips are out on the roundabout at the top of Leith Walk. Then some familiar music. Past Shrubhill, and a large scale demolition, through the trees a young girl with blonde hair clambers up the side of one of the big mounds of rubble, and stands at the top looking sideways for another person. Another diversion. On the links a football pitch and a triangle around the goalmouth marked out in red and white tape. A man leans out of a window to smoke. Front gardens empty but for grass.
Cloudbank.
Origins of Consciousness and Language Acquisition.
Line map shewing the manner in which we acquire fixated consciousness through lingustic conditioning of child mind by surrounding cultural inputs.
Starting with non-linguistic sensory organisation and differentiation (top left) then moving into tone-meaning, basic tone-signature then 'word' association in sensory processes and acquisition of associative memory.. The basic building blocks.
The we move into acquisition of rudimentary grammar, action/reaction, mimickry, rudimentary causality and self awareness.
This followed by expanding vocabulary, symbol/reading skills and formal primary education.
Our conceptual frameworks derive from these early experiences AND the structure of the native language we inhabit.
in fundamental perception
there are events
occurences
without subject
or object
noun
or verb
yet in the parthogenesis
of naming
differentiation
separation
the illusion
the observer and the observed
arise
and persist
so long as the noise
the naming
persists
until reunion
when the dewdrop
rejoins the ocean
the rainbow rewoven
You will have to blow this photograph up ins size in order to make it remotely comprehensible.
'Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven, and al these things shall be added unto you...'
Scanned and cleaned by Melora of historyofhyrule.com from the Japanese artbook, Hyrule Historia (Now published in multiple languages)
Joan Capote's Abstenencia (politica) at the Museum of Fine Arts. Capote (who lives in Havana) "cast the hands of many individual Cubans in specific gestures. He then assembled them to spell the word 'politics' in sign language."
PRESIDIO OF MONTEREY, Calif. -- The 26th commandant of the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center retired during a ceremony on Soldier Field here April 18. Retired Brig. Gen. Russell D. Howard officiated the ceremony in which Col. Danial D. Pick was recognized for his nearly three decades of Army service. Pick, a graduate of the DLIFLC Basic Arabic Course, speaks Arabic, Persian-Farsi, Persian-Dari and Assyrian. Prior to taking the position of DLIFLC commandant on May 6, 2010, Pick served as the director of the Army’s Foreign Area Officer program here.
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PHOTO by Steven L. Shepard, Presidio of Monterey Public Affairs.
Our body language and posture play a very important role in public speaking. It is generally said that gestures speak louder than words and so we have to pay great attention on our body language to make our public speaking more effective. Click here to read more about body language and posture during public speaking.
. . . 3. 3. 2007 - this is the second day of a funeral ceremony in Bori for a High Class Woman. She died on 18. 1. 2007 at the age of 85 years. The ceremony will last for one week.
If you wonder why the quality of the pictures is a little less: these are no photographs - it all are snapshots of my videos! So sorry for the less resolution, but I think, they are worth to be shown.
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The Toraja are an ethnic group indigenous to a mountainous region of South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Their population is approximately 1,100,000, of whom 450,000 live in the regency of Tana Toraja ("Land of Toraja"). Most of the population is Christian, and others are Muslim or have local animist beliefs known as aluk ("the way"). The Indonesian government has recognized this animist belief as Aluk To Dolo ("Way of the Ancestors").
The word toraja comes from the Bugis Buginese language term to riaja, meaning "people of the uplands". The Dutch colonial government named the people Toraja in 1909. Torajans are renowned for their elaborate funeral rites, burial sites carved into rocky cliffs, massive peaked-roof traditional houses known as tongkonan, and colorful wood carvings. Toraja funeral rites are important social events, usually attended by hundreds of people and lasting for several days.
Before the 20th century, Torajans lived in autonomous villages, where they practised animism and were relatively untouched by the outside world. In the early 1900s, Dutch missionaries first worked to convert Torajan highlanders to Christianity. When the Tana Toraja regency was further opened to the outside world in the 1970s, it became an icon of tourism in Indonesia: it was exploited by tourism developers and studied by anthropologists. By the 1990s, when tourism peaked, Toraja society had changed significantly, from an agrarian model - in which social life and customs were outgrowths of the Aluk To Dolo - to a largely Christian society. Today, tourism and remittances from migrant Torajans have made for major changes in the Toraja highland, giving the Toraja a celebrity status within Indonesia and enhancing Toraja ethnic group pride.
ETHNIC IDENTITY
The Torajan people had little notion of themselves as a distinct ethnic group before the 20th century. Before Dutch colonization and Christianization, Torajans, who lived in highland areas, identified with their villages and did not share a broad sense of identity. Although complexes of rituals created linkages between highland villages, there were variations in dialects, differences in social hierarchies, and an array of ritual practices in the Sulawesi highland region. "Toraja" (from the coastal languages' to, meaning people; and riaja, uplands) was first used as a lowlander expression for highlanders. As a result, "Toraja" initially had more currency with outsiders - such as the Bugis and Makassarese, who constitute a majority of the lowland of Sulawesi - than with insiders. The Dutch missionaries' presence in the highlands gave rise to the Toraja ethnic consciousness in the Sa'dan Toraja region, and this shared identity grew with the rise of tourism in the Tana Toraja Regency. Since then, South Sulawesi has four main ethnic groups - the Bugis (the majority, including shipbuilders and seafarers), the Makassarese (lowland traders and seafarers), the Mandarese (traders and fishermen), and the Toraja (highland rice cultivators).
HISTORY
From the 17th century, the Dutch established trade and political control on Sulawesi through the Dutch East Indies Company. Over two centuries, they ignored the mountainous area in the central Sulawesi, where Torajans lived, because access was difficult and it had little productive agricultural land. In the late 19th century, the Dutch became increasingly concerned about the spread of Islam in the south of Sulawesi, especially among the Makassarese and Bugis peoples. The Dutch saw the animist highlanders as potential Christians. In the 1920s, the Reformed Missionary Alliance of the Dutch Reformed Church began missionary work aided by the Dutch colonial government. In addition to introducing Christianity, the Dutch abolished slavery and imposed local taxes. A line was drawn around the Sa'dan area and called Tana Toraja ("the land of Toraja"). Tana Toraja was first a subdivision of the Luwu kingdom that had claimed the area. In 1946, the Dutch granted Tana Toraja a regentschap, and it was recognized in 1957 as one of the regencies of Indonesia.
Early Dutch missionaries faced strong opposition among Torajans, especially among the elite, because the abolition of their profitable slave trade had angered them. Some Torajans were forcibly relocated to the lowlands by the Dutch, where they could be more easily controlled. Taxes were kept high, undermining the wealth of the elites. Ultimately, the Dutch influence did not subdue Torajan culture, and only a few Torajans were converted. In 1950, only 10% of the population had converted to Christianity.
In the 1930s, Muslim lowlanders attacked the Torajans, resulting in widespread Christian conversion among those who sought to align themselves with the Dutch for political protection and to form a movement against the Bugis and Makassarese Muslims. Between 1951 and 1965 (following Indonesian independence), southern Sulawesi faced a turbulent period as the Darul Islam separatist movement fought for an Islamic state in Sulawesi. The 15 years of guerrilla warfare led to massive conversions to
CHRISTIANITY
Alignment with the Indonesian government, however, did not guarantee safety for the Torajans. In 1965, a presidential decree required every Indonesian citizen to belong to one of five officially recognized religions: Islam, Christianity (Protestantism and Catholicism), Hinduism, or Buddhism. The Torajan religious belief (aluk) was not legally recognized, and the Torajans raised their voices against the law. To make aluk accord with the law, it had to be accepted as part of one of the official religions. In 1969, Aluk To Dolo ("the way of ancestors") was legalized as a sect of Agama Hindu Dharma, the official name of Hinduism in Indonesia.
SOCIETY
There are three main types of affiliation in Toraja society: family, class and religion.
FAMILY AFFILIATION
Family is the primary social and political grouping in Torajan society. Each village is one extended family, the seat of which is the tongkonan, a traditional Torajan house. Each tongkonan has a name, which becomes the name of the village. The familial dons maintain village unity. Marriage between distant cousins (fourth cousins and beyond) is a common practice that strengthens kinship. Toraja society prohibits marriage between close cousins (up to and including the third cousin) - except for nobles, to prevent the dispersal of property. Kinship is actively reciprocal, meaning that the extended family helps each other farm, share buffalo rituals, and pay off debts.
Each person belongs to both the mother's and the father's families, the only bilateral family line in Indonesia. Children, therefore, inherit household affiliation from both mother and father, including land and even family debts. Children's names are given on the basis of kinship, and are usually chosen after dead relatives. Names of aunts, uncles and cousins are commonly referred to in the names of mothers, fathers and siblings.
Before the start of the formal administration of Toraja villages by the Tana Toraja Regency, each Toraja village was autonomous. In a more complex situation, in which one Toraja family could not handle their problems alone, several villages formed a group; sometimes, villages would unite against other villages. Relationship between families was expressed through blood, marriage, and shared ancestral houses (tongkonan), practically signed by the exchange of water buffalo and pigs on ritual occasions. Such exchanges not only built political and cultural ties between families but defined each person's place in a social hierarchy: who poured palm wine, who wrapped a corpse and prepared offerings, where each person could or could not sit, what dishes should be used or avoided, and even what piece of meat constituted one's share.
CLASS AFFILIATION
In early Toraja society, family relationships were tied closely to social class. There were three strata: nobles, commoners, and slaves (slavery was abolished in 1909 by the Dutch East Indies government). Class was inherited through the mother. It was taboo, therefore, to marry "down" with a woman of lower class. On the other hand, marrying a woman of higher class could improve the status of the next generation. The nobility's condescending attitude toward the commoners is still maintained today for reasons of family prestige.
Nobles, who were believed to be direct descendants of the descended person from heaven, lived in tongkonans, while commoners lived in less lavish houses (bamboo shacks called banua). Slaves lived in small huts, which had to be built around their owner's tongkonan. Commoners might marry anyone, but nobles preferred to marry in-family to maintain their status. Sometimes nobles married Bugis or Makassarese nobles. Commoners and slaves were prohibited from having death feasts. Despite close kinship and status inheritance, there was some social mobility, as marriage or change in wealth could affect an individuals status. Wealth was counted by the ownership of water buffaloes.
Slaves in Toraja society were family property. Sometimes Torajans decided to become slaves when they incurred a debt, pledging to work as payment. Slaves could be taken during wars, and slave trading was common. Slaves could buy their freedom, but their children still inherited slave status. Slaves were prohibited from wearing bronze or gold, carving their houses, eating from the same dishes as their owners, or having sex with free women - a crime punishable by death.
RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION
Toraja's indigenous belief system is polytheistic animism, called aluk, or "the way" (sometimes translated as "the law"). In the Toraja myth, the ancestors of Torajan people came down from heaven using stairs, which were then used by the Torajans as a communication medium with Puang Matua, the Creator. The cosmos, according to aluk, is divided into the upper world (heaven), the world of man (earth), and the underworld. At first, heaven and earth were married, then there was a darkness, a separation, and finally the light. Animals live in the underworld, which is represented by rectangular space enclosed by pillars, the earth is for mankind, and the heaven world is located above, covered with a saddle-shaped roof. Other Toraja gods include Pong Banggai di Rante (god of Earth), Indo' Ongon-Ongon (a goddess who can cause earthquakes), Pong Lalondong (god of death), and Indo' Belo Tumbang (goddess of medicine); there are many more.
The earthly authority, whose words and actions should be cleaved to both in life (agriculture) and death (funerals), is called to minaa (an aluk priest). Aluk is not just a belief system; it is a combination of law, religion, and habit. Aluk governs social life, agricultural practices, and ancestral rituals. The details of aluk may vary from one village to another. One common law is the requirement that death and life rituals be separated. Torajans believe that performing death rituals might ruin their corpses if combined with life rituals. The two rituals are equally important. During the time of the Dutch missionaries, Christian Torajans were prohibited from attending or performing life rituals, but were allowed to perform death rituals. Consequently, Toraja's death rituals are still practised today, while life rituals have diminished.
CULTURE
TONGKONAN
Tongkonan are the traditional Torajan ancestral houses. They stand high on wooden piles, topped with a layered split-bamboo roof shaped in a sweeping curved arc, and they are incised with red, black, and yellow detailed wood carvings on the exterior walls. The word "tongkonan" comes from the Torajan tongkon ("to sit").
Tongkonan are the center of Torajan social life. The rituals associated with the tongkonan are important expressions of Torajan spiritual life, and therefore all family members are impelled to participate, because symbolically the tongkonan represents links to their ancestors and to living and future kin. According to Torajan myth, the first tongkonan was built in heaven on four poles, with a roof made of Indian cloth. When the first Torajan ancestor descended to earth, he imitated the house and held a large ceremony.
The construction of a tongkonan is laborious work and is usually done with the help of the extended family. There are three types of tongkonan. The tongkonan layuk is the house of the highest authority, used as the "center of government". The tongkonan pekamberan belongs to the family members who have some authority in local traditions. Ordinary family members reside in the tongkonan batu. The exclusivity to the nobility of the tongkonan is diminishing as many Torajan commoners find lucrative employment in other parts of Indonesia. As they send back money to their families, they enable the construction of larger tongkonan.
WOOD CARVINGS
To express social and religious concepts, Torajans carve wood, calling it Pa'ssura (or "the writing"). Wood carvings are therefore Toraja's cultural manifestation.
Each carving receives a special name, and common motifs are animals and plants that symbolize some virtue. For example, water plants and animals, such as crabs, tadpoles and water weeds, are commonly found to symbolize fertility. In some areas noble elders claim these symbols refer to strength of noble family, but not everyone agrees. The overall meaning of groups of carved motifs on houses remains debated and tourism has further complicated these debates because some feel a uniform explanation must be presented to tourists. The image to the left shows an example of Torajan wood carving, consisting of 15 square panels. The center bottom panel represents buffalo or wealth, a wish for many buffaloes for the family. The center panel represents a knot and a box, a hope that all of the family's offspring will be happy and live in harmony, like goods kept safe in a box. The top left and top right squares represent an aquatic animal, indicating the need for fast and hard work, just like moving on the surface of water. It also represents the need for a certain skill to produce good results.
Regularity and order are common features in Toraja wood carving (see table below), as well as abstracts and geometrical designs. Nature is frequently used as the basis of Toraja's ornaments, because nature is full of abstractions and geometries with regularities and ordering. Toraja's ornaments have been studied in ethnomathematics to reveal their mathematical structure, but Torajans base this art only on approximations. To create an ornament, bamboo sticks are used as a geometrical tool.
FUNERAL RITES
In Toraja society, the funeral ritual is the most elaborate and expensive event. The richer and more powerful the individual, the more expensive is the funeral. In the aluk religion, only nobles have the right to have an extensive death feast. The death feast of a nobleman is usually attended by thousands and lasts for several days. A ceremonial site, called rante, is usually prepared in a large, grassy field where shelters for audiences, rice barns, and other ceremonial funeral structures are specially made by the deceased family. Flute music, funeral chants, songs and poems, and crying and wailing are traditional Toraja expressions of grief with the exceptions of funerals for young children, and poor, low-status adults.
The ceremony is often held weeks, months, or years after the death so that the deceased's family can raise the significant funds needed to cover funeral expenses. Torajans traditionally believe that death is not a sudden, abrupt event, but a gradual process toward Puya (the land of souls, or afterlife). During the waiting period, the body of the deceased is wrapped in several layers of cloth and kept under the tongkonan. The soul of the deceased is thought to linger around the village until the funeral ceremony is completed, after which it begins its journey to Puya.
Another component of the ritual is the slaughter of water buffalo. The more powerful the person who died, the more buffalo are slaughtered at the death feast. Buffalo carcasses, including their heads, are usually lined up on a field waiting for their owner, who is in the "sleeping stage". Torajans believe that the deceased will need the buffalo to make the journey and that they will be quicker to arrive at Puya if they have many buffalo. Slaughtering tens of water buffalo and hundreds of pigs using a machete is the climax of the elaborate death feast, with dancing and music and young boys who catch spurting blood in long bamboo tubes. Some of the slaughtered animals are given by guests as "gifts", which are carefully noted because they will be considered debts of the deceased's family. However, a cockfight, known as bulangan londong, is an integral part of the ceremony. As with the sacrifice of the buffalo and the pigs, the cockfight is considered sacred because it involves the spilling of blood on the earth. In particular, the tradition requires the sacrifice of at least three chickens. However, it is common for at least 25 pairs of chickens to be set against each other in the context of the ceremony.
There are three methods of burial: the coffin may be laid in a cave or in a carved stone grave, or hung on a cliff. It contains any possessions that the deceased will need in the afterlife. The wealthy are often buried in a stone grave carved out of a rocky cliff. The grave is usually expensive and takes a few months to complete. In some areas, a stone cave may be found that is large enough to accommodate a whole family. A wood-carved effigy, called Tau tau, is usually placed in the cave looking out over the land. The coffin of a baby or child may be hung from ropes on a cliff face or from a tree. This hanging grave usually lasts for years, until the ropes rot and the coffin falls to the ground.
In the ritual called Ma'Nene, that takes place each year in August, the bodies of the deceased are exhumed to be washed, groomed and dressed in new clothes. The mummies are then walked around the village.
DANCE AND MUSIC
Torajans perform dances on several occasions, most often during their elaborate funeral ceremonies. They dance to express their grief, and to honour and even cheer the deceased person because he is going to have a long journey in the afterlife. First, a group of men form a circle and sing a monotonous chant throughout the night to honour the deceased (a ritual called Ma'badong). This is considered by many Torajans to be the most important component of the funeral ceremony. On the second funeral day, the Ma'randing warrior dance is performed to praise the courage of the deceased during life. Several men perform the dance with a sword, a large shield made from buffalo skin, a helmet with a buffalo horn, and other ornamentation. The Ma'randing dance precedes a procession in which the deceased is carried from a rice barn to the rante, the site of the funeral ceremony. During the funeral, elder women perform the Ma'katia dance while singing a poetic song and wearing a long feathered costume. The Ma'akatia dance is performed to remind the audience of the generosity and loyalty of the deceased person. After the bloody ceremony of buffalo and pig slaughter, a group of boys and girls clap their hands while performing a cheerful dance called Ma'dondan.
As in other agricultural societies, Torajans dance and sing during harvest time. The Ma'bugi dance celebrates the thanksgiving event, and the Ma'gandangi dance is performed while Torajans are pounding rice. There are several war dances, such as the Manimbong dance performed by men, followed by the Ma'dandan dance performed by women. The aluk religion governs when and how Torajans dance. A dance called Ma'bua can be performed only once every 12 years. Ma'bua is a major Toraja ceremony in which priests wear a buffalo head and dance around a sacred tree.
A traditional musical instrument of the Toraja is a bamboo flute called a Pa'suling (suling is an Indonesian word for flute). This six-holed flute (not unique to the Toraja) is played at many dances, such as the thanksgiving dance Ma'bondensan, where the flute accompanies a group of shirtless, dancing men with long fingernails. The Toraja have indigenous musical instruments, such as the Pa'pelle (made from palm leaves) and the Pa'karombi (the Torajan version of a jaw harp). The Pa'pelle is played during harvest time and at house inauguration ceremonies.
LANGUAGE
The ethnic Toraja language is dominant in Tana Toraja with the main language as the Sa'dan Toraja. Although the national Indonesian language is the official language and is spoken in the community, all elementary schools in Tana Toraja teach Toraja language.Language varieties of Toraja, including Kalumpang, Mamasa, Tae' , Talondo' , Toala' , and Toraja-Sa'dan, belong to the Malayo-Polynesian language from the Austronesian family. At the outset, the isolated geographical nature of Tana Toraja formed many dialects between the Toraja languages themselves. After the formal administration of Tana Toraja, some Toraja dialects have been influenced by other languages through the transmigration program, introduced since the colonialism period, and it has been a major factor in the linguistic variety of Toraja languages. A prominent attribute of Toraja language is the notion of grief. The importance of death ceremony in Toraja culture has characterized their languages to express intricate degrees of grief and mourning. The Toraja language contains many terms referring to sadness, longing, depression, and mental pain. Giving a clear expression of the psychological and physical effect of loss is a catharsis and sometimes lessens the pain of grief itself.
ECONOMY
Prior to Suharto's "New Order" administration, the Torajan economy was based on agriculture, with cultivated wet rice in terraced fields on mountain slopes, and supplemental cassava and maize crops. Much time and energy were devoted to raising water buffalo, pigs, and chickens, primarily for ceremonial sacrifices and consumption. Coffee was the first significant cash crop produced in Toraja, and was introduced in the mid 19th century, changing the local economy towards commodity production for external markets and gaining an excellent reputation for quality in the international market .
With the commencement of the New Order in 1965, Indonesia's economy developed and opened to foreign investment. In Toraja, a coffee plantation and factory was established by Key Coffee of Japan, and Torajan coffee regained a reputation for quality within the growing international specialty coffee sector Multinational oil and mining companies opened new operations in Indonesia during the 1970s and 1980s. Torajans, particularly younger ones, relocated to work for the foreign companies - to Kalimantan for timber and oil, to Papua for mining, to the cities of Sulawesi and Java, and many went to Malaysia. The out-migration of Torajans was steady until 1985. and has continued since, with remittances sent back by emigre Torajans performing an important role within the contemporary economy.
Tourism commenced in Toraja in the 1970s, and accelerated in the 1980s and 1990s. Between 1984 and 1997, a significant number of Torajans obtained their incomes from tourism, working in and owning hotels, as tour guides, drivers, or selling souvenirs. With the rise of political and economic instability in Indonesia in the late 1990s - including religious conflicts elsewhere on Sulawesi - tourism in Tana Toraja has declined dramatically. Toraja continues to be a well known origin for Indonesian coffee, grown by both smallholders and plantation estates, although migration, remittances and off-farm income is considered far more important to most households, even those in rural areas.
TOURISM AND CULTURAL CHANGE
Before the 1970s, Toraja was almost unknown to Western tourism. In 1971, about 50 Europeans visited Tana Toraja. In 1972, at least 400 visitors attended the funeral ritual of Puang of Sangalla, the highest-ranking nobleman in Tana Toraja and the so-called "last pure-blooded Toraja noble." The event was documented by National Geographic and broadcast in several European countries. In 1976, about 12,000 tourists visited the regency and in 1981, Torajan sculpture was exhibited in major North American museums. "The land of the heavenly kings of Tana Toraja", as written in the exhibition brochure, embraced the outside world.
In 1984, the Indonesian Ministry of Tourism declared Tana Toraja Regency the prima donna of South Sulawesi. Tana Toraja was heralded as "the second stop after Bali". Tourism was increasing dramatically: by 1985, a total number of 150,000 foreigners had visited the Regency (in addition to 80,000 domestic tourists), and the annual number of foreign visitors was recorded at 40,000 in 1989. Souvenir stands appeared in Rantepao, the cultural center of Toraja, roads were sealed at the most-visited tourist sites, new hotels and tourist-oriented restaurants were opened, and an airstrip was opened in the Regency in 1981.
Tourism developers have marketed Tana Toraja as an exotic adventure - an area rich in culture and off the beaten track. Western tourists expected to see stone-age villages and pagan funerals. Toraja is for tourists who have gone as far as Bali and are willing to see more of the wild, "untouched" islands. However, they were more likely to see a Torajan wearing a hat and denim, living in a Christian society. Tourists felt that the tongkonan and other Torajan rituals had been preconceived to make profits, and complained that the destination was too commercialized. This has resulted in several clashes between Torajans and tourism developers, whom Torajans see as outsiders.
A clash between local Torajan leaders and the South Sulawesi provincial government (as a tourist developer) broke out in 1985. The government designated 18 Toraja villages and burial sites as traditional tourist attractions. Consequently, zoning restrictions were applied to these areas, such that Torajans themselves were barred from changing their tongkonans and burial sites. The plan was opposed by some Torajan leaders, as they felt that their rituals and traditions were being determined by outsiders. As a result, in 1987, the Torajan village of Kété Kesú and several other designated tourist attractions closed their doors to tourists. This closure lasted only a few days, as the villagers found it too difficult to survive without the income from selling souvenirs.
Tourism has also transformed Toraja society. Originally, there was a ritual which allowed commoners to marry nobles (puang) and thereby gain nobility for their children. However, the image of Torajan society created for the tourists, often by "lower-ranking" guides, has eroded its traditional strict hierarchy. High status is not as esteemed in Tana Toraja as it once was. Many low-ranking men can declare themselves and their children nobles by gaining enough wealth through work outside the region and then marrying a noble woman.
WIKIPEDIA
Photo by Hiro Chang, Presidio of Monterey Public Affairs
The Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center opened its doors to the public on May 15 for its annual Language Day event.
The event showcased the cultures of the different departmental languages being taught here through dance, skits and fashion shows.
Exhibits were also presented throughout the school grounds with local Monterey ethnic vendors selling their local cuisines to the customers.
Nearly 2,000 high school students and teachers attended Language Day.
As a part of Cultural Understanding and Language Proficiency Program, U.S. Army ROTC cadets visit Ukraine and Rapid Trident 2012, which was held at the International Peacekeeping and Security Center in Yavoriv, Ukraine, July 18. Rapid Trident is a multinational exercise held at the International Peacekeeping and Security Center in Yavoriv, Ukraine. It is designed to promote regional stability and security, strengthen international military partnering and foster trust while improving interoperability between participating nations.(Photo by Lt. Col. Taras Gren, Ukrainian Army Public Affairs)
FILE PAI
Paulista Avenida Interativa
Paulista Interactive Avenue
Karolina Sobecka – Sniff - Estados Unidos - United States
Karolina Sobecka – Chase | Estados Unidos - United States
Kurt Hentschläger - ZEE - Kurt Hentschläger
Movimento Crie Futuros: Lala Deheinzelin - Fale com o futuro: crie futuros desejáveis – Brasil | Brazil
Patrick Smith | vectorpark.com – Feed the Head | Estados Unidos
Patrick Smith | vectorpark.com – Levers | Estados Unidos
Patrick Smith | vectorpark.com – Park | Estados Unidos
Patrick Smith | vectorpark.com – Spiders | Estados Unidos
Patrick Smith | vectorpark.com – Thomas | Estados Unidos
Patrick Smith | vectorpark.com – Windosill | Estados Unidos
Q-Games - Pixeljunk Eden – Japão | Japan
Rejane Cantoni & Leonardo Crescenti – PISO - Brasil | Brazil
Rejane Cantoni & Leonardo Crescenti – Infinito ao Cubo - Brasil | Brazil
Steger Produção de Efeitos Especiais Ltda. - Simulador de Ondas e Simulador de Turbilhão – Brasil | Brazil
That Game Company – Flower – Estados Unidos | United States
That Game Company – flOw – Estados Unidos | United States
Vanderlei Lucentini - Omnibusonia Paulista – Brasil | Brazil
VR/Urban: Patrick Tobias Fischer, Christian Zöllner, Thilo Hoffmann & Sebastian Piatza – SMSlingshot – Reino Unido | United Kingdom
FILE ANIMAÇÃO | FILE ANIMATION
Siggraph
Japan Media Arts Festival
FILE SYMPOSIUM – de 27 a 30/07
27/07
Jorge Hernández [coordenador/coordinator], Raquel Rennó, Ricardo Veja, Vicky Messi & Jorge Villacorta | Peru, Argentina, Chile e Brasil
Colóquio de Arte Digital Sul-americano: Brasil e Cone Sul dialogam
Electronic Shadow: Naziha Mestaoui & Yacine Aït Kaci | França
Echo & narcissus
Andrew Hieronymi | Estados Unidos
Jogos físicos: Além dos Minigames
Espen Aarseth | Estados Unidos
A Estética do Bottom-up: Histórias, Games e o Metacronotópio
Lala Deheinzelin (coordenação); Liliana Magalhães (Santander Cultural); Luciane Gorgulho (BNDES); Maria Arlete Gonçalves (Oi Futuro) | Brasil
Economia Criativa, Fomento e Tecnologias
28/07
SWAMP: Douglas Easterly & Tiago Rorke | Nova Zelândia
Tardigotchi
VR/Urban: Christian Zöllner & Patrick Tobias Fischer | Reino Unido
Nós Declaramos “O Ato sobre Bens Híbridos!”
Tim Webster | Australia
Terras Maravilhosas: Machu Pichu
Kenneth Hansen | Dinamarca
Formas de arte digitais como projetos de experiência global para o desenvolvimento internacional?
Regine Debatty | Itália
Nós fazemos dinheiro, não arte
Jörg Piringer | Áustria
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz for iPhone
Anna Barros | Brasil
Acredite ou não nós somos nano
Mathias Kassmannhuber | Áustria
“Reflection Eternal” - medindo o espaço auditivo com som focalizado
Kurt Hentschlager | Áustria
Composição audiovisual e ambientes imersivos
29/07
Agnus Valente | Brasil
Hibridação Interformativa em processos artísticos interativos
Philip Mangione | Brasil
Chameleon Puzzle Runners
Maxuino: Chris Coleman and Ali Momeni | Estados Unidos
Maxuino
Clarissa Ribeiro, Renata La Rocca & Graziele Lautenschlaeger | Brasil
Instantes de Metamorfose 01
Julio Lucio Martin | Brasil
Passeio Sonoro
David Clark | Canadá
Sign after the X
30/07
Vivian Caccuri | Brasil
A Escuta na Arte Contemporânea questionando categorias com “See This Sound” e Cildo Meirelles
Artur Matuck | Brasil
Um Manifesto pela Re-Informação
Edson Zampronha | Espanha e Brasil
Da criação do som à invenção do sentido
Ernesto Klar | Estados Unidos e Venezuela
“Luzes relacionais”, 2009-2010
Rejane Cantoni e Leonardo Crescenti | Brasil
Como, quando e porque desenhar interfaces áudio-tátil-visuais
Pau Waelder Laso | Espanha
Inner voices and data flows
2.52
"Touch comes before sight, before speech. It is the first language and the last, and it always tells the truth."
~Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin
PRESIDIO OF MONTEREY, California -- The 2018 Language Day celebration was held by the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center at the Presidio of Monterey, May 11. Language Day is open to the public and attended by schools across the nation to promote an understanding of diverse customs and cultures from around the world. Approximately 6,000 people attended this annual event featuring cultural displays, activities and international ethnic cuisine served by local vendors.
Official Presidio of Monterey Web site
Official Presidio of Monterey Facebook
PHOTO by Steven L. Shepard, Presidio of Monterey Public Affairs.
On the Li Zheng Gate 麗正門, the name is written in Mongolian, Chagatai (an older, now extinct, form of Uighur), Han (ie. Chinese), Tibetan, and Manchu - the five main languages given more prominent recognition by the Qing Dynasty.
Chengde, December 2017
Gail Maurice, dir.; and Melanie Bray, act.; "Rosie" © Linda Dawn Hammond/ IndyFoto 2022. Photographed in Graffiti Alley, Toronto, Canada.
Portrait of Gail Maurice, by Artist Kent Monkman, "Shining Stars" series in "Being Legendary" exhibit, at the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum) © IndyFoto 2022
“Rosie”
Review and Interview
By Linda Dawn Hammond
“Rosie” is the first feature film of Metis director and writer, Gail Maurice, who is also known as an actor in the TV series, “Trickster”. She self identifies as a member of the LGBTQ+ community and is one of a small number of less than 2000 people who can still speak Michif, a now endangered language which was spoken by the Metis people of Canada in the 19th and 20th centuries. It is a primarily a combination of French nouns and Cree verbs, and originated in the 1800s from contact between Francophone traders and Cree and Ojibwe First Nations people. The descendants of these French and First Nations unions became known as Metis.
“Rosie” appears on the surface to be a simple, joyous film about an engaging trio of social misfits who, with the help of an orphan child, find emotional support and resolution in a chosen family of their own creation. Its underlying messages are far more complex and will speak to those aware of the terrible legacy of Canada’s Residential Schools and the “Sixties Scoop,” which adversely affected the lives of thousands of indigenous people and their descendants.
It is set in 1980s Montreal, which in “Rosie” is a world categorized by poverty and insecurity for those who don’t conform to society’s standards and norms. The character of “Fred”, (Mélanie Bray) is lovingly portrayed as a somewhat irresponsible Francophone artist who lives a precarious existence on the constant edge of poverty, eviction and unemployment. Her best friends are Flo (Constant Bernard) and Mo (Alex Trahan), who are flamboyant and decidedly non-gender conforming. Their alternative lifestyles are suddenly disrupted by the initially unwelcome arrival of a homeless six year old girl, Rosie (Keris Hope Hill). Through her enthusiastic, sweet presence, she teaches the adults about responsibility but also to live their dreams. At the time of shooting Keris had never acted before, but she is charming and effective in the part. The Kanien'kehá:ka girl from the Six Nations of the Grand River plays the role of an indigenous child left orphaned after the death of her mother. (It is perplexing that she was not included in Tiff’s roster of 2022 Rising Stars, but she was mentioned in CBC’s recent list of young, talented stars.)
In the film, “Rosie”, social services search for a blood relative to take custody of Rosie, an orphaned English speaking girl in Montreal. All they can uncover is a “sister” of the deceased mother, a Francophone woman who had been once been placed in the same adoptive home. They have no records of the whereabouts of any genetic relatives due to the willful incompetence of officials during the “Sixties Scoop”, when tens of thousands of children, primarily indigenous, were forcibly removed from their families and placed in predominantly white foster homes. These stolen children were not encouraged to remain in contact with their families or know of their heritage. In many cases they were intentionally sent far away to achieve this separation.
It is a story close to the heart of the director on many levels. Maurice experienced a similar painful disruption in her own family. Whereas she as the eldest child was fortunate to be taken in and raised by her Metis grandmother, who taught her Michif and the ways of their people, a younger brother and sister were removed in the “Sixties Scoop” and disappeared. It is only recently that the whereabouts of Gail’s brother was discovered.
In Quebec, language is always part of the conversation, but in Montreal in particular, bilingualism has been an important factor in breaching any linguistic or cultural divides. The little orphaned girl in the story is indigenous and anglophone, and although she finds herself in a world which is French speaking and white, there are no divides as people choose to learn from each other, and even introduce a third language, Cree.
Interview
I sat down with Rosie’s director, Gail Maurice, and her partner, actor Mélanie Bray, to discuss the film.
GM (Gail Maurice):
I was asked about the 80s, how there was so much violence against gay culture, queer culture. So they asked my perspective, because Rosie is not really (violent), I mean, there's a couple moments in the film that showed or insinuated it. But it's not about that, even though a couple of broadcasters told me they wanted me to add that element, the violence towards the gay people, towards Flo and Mo, and I tried to do that, and it just went to a dark place. And I thought to myself, that's not the story I want to tell. That's not my experience in the ‘80s, of being gay. What my experience was, basically, was what “Rosie” is, and it was a time of where I was finding out about being gay and gay culture, and it was also new and wild and beautiful. And, just extravagant, you know. And so, that's why I wrote a story from Rosie's perspective, because she is able to see the world with that wide eyed wonder. And that's exactly how I was when I came out, and that's the story I wanted to tell. I wanted to tell a story of chosen family, of love, belonging, being it wasn't a story about, gay culture, per se. What I’d like to say is, it's an indigenous story with an indigenous perspective, told through the eyes of a little indigenous girl who happens to be part of this scene, and during a period of time (the 80s) that is really important to me, that was, coming out. So that's the story I wanted to tell. I came out I was 18. My first year university. It was a magical time, in Saskatoon, in a little bar called Numbers.
LDH (Linda Dawn Hammond)
Can you talk about how the “60s scoop” affected you personally?
GM:
I was able to find my brother. Part of the effect of the “60s scoop” is loss of culture and identity. So when I found him, I did a little short (film) called, “Little Indians. “ We're not close. I've seen him maybe three times, and in a very different environment. He grew up in the white home, with a white family and on a farm. He said he played baseball with the little Indians. You know, so he took himself out and didn't see himself as an Indian. I know he knows he's Metis. It's hard. It's a loss, and I have a sister out there somewhere…
LDH:
You were able to live with your grandma, and there you learned a language that's so rare. Michif.
GM:
Michif. And yeah, I wrote a trilingual film, because I wanted to be able to talk about my language as well. Not a lot of people know about that language, which is a mixture of Cree and French. I was teasing Melanie, I said, “My French is the original French. Because, you know, it's part of the Couriers de Bois and the French fur traders. So my French is actually from that era. So we still have all that French in my language, whereas Melanie’s, it's now modern, right?
LDH:
French people in France say that yours (Melanie’s) is actually the original French. Quebec French is considered to be what the language was like before it transformed over in France and became modern.
You mentioned “Rosie” is a trilingual film.
Is it Michif you’re teaching them, the (indigenous) language in the class scene. Is that where it came in?
GM:
Yeah, so my language is pretty (much) French. So sometimes there's three. Our numbers are crazy, and household things are French- dirt and colds are French. So the numbers were all created. I wanted to tell a story about chosen family, to monitor those children that were taken away- it's part of the 60s Scoop, and the effects of that. Some of them will never know who they are, or where their family's from, or who their blood relatives are. I wanted to tell a story, to honour them, because they're doing the best that they can in the world. And just to say, that they're strong, and they're survivors, and I admire and honour them. So that's why I wanted to tell “Rosie” as well, but also, it's a story about beauty in trash. So metaphoric faith, there's a lot of people that think that others are less than them, for example, Jigger (the character of a homeless Cree man, played by actor Brandon Oakes), who's my favourite character, but he's the one that's most grounded to me. He's the one that has his culture, and his language, and he's the one that tells Rosie, and shares the culture with Rosie. So he is, actually, the strongest character.
That's the whole tragedy of it, always. There's people in Europe that don't even realize where they're from. There's a film out there which (Dr.) Tasha Hubbard did. She's Cree from the prairies. She did a documentary on family, the family that found each other. For years and years apart, and they were all over the world. (“Birth of a Family”, 2017, NFB)
LDH:
What acting role did you play in “Bones of Crows” ?
GM:
It's about residential school, and it takes place over 100 years, following a woman and matriarch. I played the Matriarch’s daughter.
There's so many people in Canada that don't know about my culture or the atrocities that happened. Two years ago, social workers went into a hospital and took a baby right out of a woman's arms… it was based on lies, but the power the government has, the power that the social workers and doctors have, is unbelievable… I can't imagine them doing that to a person that's non Indigenous. It's unfathomable that doctors and the government could get away with that, but they do get away with it with indigenous people. “Rosie” is a story with a lot of heavy topics, but in the next moment, you can be laughing, because the way I grew up, if we just soaked in all the hurt and all the pain and all the atrocities, how life is so difficult, if we did that, it would be bleak, and there would be no tomorrow, but the way I grew up, we actually can laugh even though the hardship of life, even though our world is breaking and falling apart. We can still laugh because laughter is, like they say, medicine, and it is medicine because it allows you to be able to lift up your head and carry on. And when you laugh, you're telling the world, you know, I can carry on, I can do this, and I'm going to do it. I'm going to triumph and that's why there's like moments where, you know, characters are crying, and then the next moment they're laughing. Yeah.
End
The World Premiere of the Canadian Indie film, “Rosie”, was featured in the Discovery program at TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival) on September 9, 2022. It was also selected as the closing film at Toronto’s ImagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts festival in October, 2022.
The ROM (Royal Ontario Museum) in Toronto is presently hosting, until March 19, 2022, an important exhibition entitled, “Being Legendary.”It features original paintings by the brilliant Cree artist, Kent Monkman, aka “Miss Chief”, who curated the exhibit. It includes cultural artifacts from the ROM’s collections, but from an indigenous perspective. The exhibit illustrates indigenous knowledge and challenges the past, colonial interpretation of history. As one enters the final room, there is a room of 11 portraits entitled, “Shining Stars”, illustrating indigenous women and men, who in their present state of being are beacons of the future. Among them, a portrait of Gail Maurice, where she is honoured by Monkman as a, “Filmmaker. Writer. Actor. Michif and nehiyawewin first languages speaker! “
A fitting tribute, which coincides with the years 2022 until 2032 being designated the UN’s * “International Decade of Indigenous Languages“
*The United Nations General Assembly (Resolution A/RES/74/135) proclaimed the period between 2022 and 2032 as the International Decade of Indigenous Languages (IDIL 2022-2032), to draw global attention on the critical situation of many indigenous languages and to mobilize stakeholders and resources for their preservation, revitalization and promotion.
The International Decade aims at ensuring indigenous peoples’ right to preserve, revitalize and promote their languages, and mainstreaming linguistic diversity and multilingualism aspects into the sustainable development efforts. It offers a unique opportunity to collaborate in the areas of policy development and stimulate a global dialogue in a true spirit of multi-stakeholder engagement, and to take necessary for the usage, preservation, revitalization and promotion of indigenous languages around the world.
www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/indigenous-...
A variety of Welsh language phrases for landscape terms
Welsh origin postcard - Judges
Blank
Sent to:
Volodymyr (ettlers), Canada 06/03/2026 direct swap
Kai, Germany 24/02/2026 as GB-1935944
Oong, Malaysia 11/05/2017 as GB-893593
Beckie, USA 26/01/2015
Euphorbia pulcherrima, commonly named poinsettia, is a species of flowering plant indigenous to Mexico and Guatemala. The name "poinsettia" is after Joel Roberts Poinsett, the first United States Minister to Mexico,who introduced the plant into the US in 1828
In Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs, the plant is called Cuetlaxochitl meaning "skin flower." The Aztecs used the plant to produce red dye and as an antipyretic medication.Today it is known in Mexico and Guatemala as "Noche Buena" or Christmas' Eve. In Spain its is known as "Flor de Pascua" or Easter Flower in English. In both Chile and Peru, the plant became known as "Crown of the Andes".
The plants' association with Christmas began in 16th century Mexico, where legend tells of a young girl who was too poor to provide a gift for the celebration of Jesus' birthday. The tale goes that the child was inspired by an angel to gather weeds from the roadside and place them in front of the church altar. Crimson "blossoms" sprouted from the weeds and became beautiful poinsettias. From the 17th century, Franciscan friars in Mexico included the plants in their Christmas celebrations.
L'Euphorbia pulcherrima nota come Poinsettia o Stella di Natale è una pianta ornamentale originaria del Messico, nazione nella quale cresce spontaneamente e dove, allo stato selvatico, può raggiungere anche un'altezza fra i due e i quattro metri, il nome "Poinsettia" deriva da Joel Robert Poinsett, il primo Ambasciatore degli Stati Uniti in Messico, il quale introdusse la pianta negli Stati Uniti nel 1825.
Appartiene alla famiglia delle Euphorbiaceae, ordine Euforbiali (Euphorbiales), classe Dicotiledoni, divisione Angiosperme; all'interno del suo tronco e dei suoi rami vi è una sostanza lattiginosa (il lattice), leggermente irritante per la pelle ma altamente tossica per cani e gatti.
Font : Wikipedia
I was replying to misterjt about how yes, indeed, the internet (with the exception of Twitter) seemed to be broken. But then Twitter went down, taking the coherence of my post with it.
I swear I didn't type it up in Japanese.
PRESIDIO OF MONTEREY, California -- The 2018 Language Day celebration was held by the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center at the Presidio of Monterey, May 11. Language Day is open to the public and attended by schools across the nation to promote an understanding of diverse customs and cultures from around the world. Approximately 6,000 people attended this annual event featuring cultural displays, activities and international ethnic cuisine served by local vendors.
Official Presidio of Monterey Web site
Official Presidio of Monterey Facebook
PHOTO by Steven L. Shepard, Presidio of Monterey Public Affairs.
WARNING: Contains some Strong Language and the occasional funny moment
Stuff the turkey! Balls to the stuffing! Get in the Christmas mood the right way with Stuart and Rick!
From Dickens to Christmas TV, the comedy duo have the whole season wrapped up for you.Download from iTunes or listen on demand…
#WTFIsXmas? - Generic Holiday Related Comedy Show #27869! - @z1radio by Ricklouder on Mixcloud
This Week We Watched - Greg Wallace's Christmas Supermarket Secrets and we have a run down of the whole Christmas TV GuideThis Week We Read - A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens. That's right, the real one! Not the one with Bill Murray, not the one with Kermit...but the actual Christmas Carol tale. Listen to us and now you'll never have to.
We also have the latest Marks and Spencers Magic and Sparkles advert, the Final of the Great Celebrity Christmas Bake Off and The 7 O'Clock Show is asking: Does Christmas Last Forever?
--http://www.twitter.com/5tuartHardy and www.twitter.com/z1radiowww.ZoneOneRadio.comhttp://ift.tt/...
PRESIDIO OF MONTEREY, Calif. - Service members from the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center were honored by Coca-Cola and the San Francisco Giants during a pre-game presentation at AT&T Park in San Francisco. A handful of service members were on the field prior to the Giants' July 21 game versus the Arizona Diamondbacks and were presented an autographed jersey by Giants' pitcher and former Cy Young Award winner Barry Zito. Zito founded the charity "Strikeouts for Troops" in 2005 in support of service members with war-related injuries and their families, and is also involved in multiple other military related non-profit organizations. In addition, 20 DLIFLC service members not involved in the pre-game ceremony were given tickets to watch the game, which ended with a Giant's loss by a score of 1-3.
Official Presidio of Monterey Web site
Official Presidio of Monterey Facebook
PHOTO by Steven L. Shepard, Presidio of Monterey Public Affairs.
Gendersprache ist umständlich und unlogisch. Entsprechend skurril sind die Umständlichkeiten und Unstimmigkeiten.
Gender language is cumbersome and illogical. The inconveniences and inconsistencies are bizarre.
Siehe Anmerkungen / annotations.
Frankfurt Konstabler Wache
PRESIDIO OF MONTEREY, Calif. -- The Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center held its 73rd Anniversary Ball on Nov. 1st, with more than 350 faculty, staff, students, alumni and friends in attendance. The event, sponsored in part by the DLI Alumni Association and Foundation, was held at the Naval Postgraduate School's historic Herrmann Hall, in Monterey. The guest speaker for the event was Ambassador Daniel Smith, Deputy Secretary for Intelligence and Research from the Department of State.
Official Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center Web site
Official Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center Facebook
PHOTO by Lopez Photography
PRESIDIO OF MONTEREY, Calif. -- The Department of Defense’s premier training institution for culturally based foreign language welcomed its newest commandant, as Col. David K. Chapman assumed command of the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center during a ceremony on Presidio's Soldier Field May 22. Brig. Gen. Christopher P. Hughes, deputy commanding general for Leader Development and Education at the U.S. Army Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., officiated the ceremony. Chapman is a DLIFLC graduate with certificates in Russian, Serbian/Croatian and Greek languages, who also served as a second lieutenant 25 years ago at the former Fort Ord with the then-7th Infantry Division. www.army.mil/article/126684/New_leader_takes_reins_of_DLI...
Official Presidio of Monterey Web site
Official Presidio of Monterey Facebook
PHOTO by Steven L. Shepard, Presidio of Monterey Public Affairs.
Graffiti (plural; singular graffiti or graffito, the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written words to elaborate wall paintings, and has existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire (see also mural).
Graffiti is a controversial subject. In most countries, marking or painting property without permission is considered by property owners and civic authorities as defacement and vandalism, which is a punishable crime, citing the use of graffiti by street gangs to mark territory or to serve as an indicator of gang-related activities. Graffiti has become visualized as a growing urban "problem" for many cities in industrialized nations, spreading from the New York City subway system and Philadelphia in the early 1970s to the rest of the United States and Europe and other world regions
"Graffiti" (usually both singular and plural) and the rare singular form "graffito" are from the Italian word graffiato ("scratched"). The term "graffiti" is used in art history for works of art produced by scratching a design into a surface. A related term is "sgraffito", which involves scratching through one layer of pigment to reveal another beneath it. This technique was primarily used by potters who would glaze their wares and then scratch a design into them. In ancient times graffiti were carved on walls with a sharp object, although sometimes chalk or coal were used. The word originates from Greek γράφειν—graphein—meaning "to write".
The term graffiti originally referred to the inscriptions, figure drawings, and such, found on the walls of ancient sepulchres or ruins, as in the Catacombs of Rome or at Pompeii. Historically, these writings were not considered vanadlism, which today is considered part of the definition of graffiti.
The only known source of the Safaitic language, an ancient form of Arabic, is from graffiti: inscriptions scratched on to the surface of rocks and boulders in the predominantly basalt desert of southern Syria, eastern Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia. Safaitic dates from the first century BC to the fourth century AD.
Some of the oldest cave paintings in the world are 40,000 year old ones found in Australia. The oldest written graffiti was found in ancient Rome around 2500 years ago. Most graffiti from the time was boasts about sexual experiences Graffiti in Ancient Rome was a form of communication, and was not considered vandalism.
Ancient tourists visiting the 5th-century citadel at Sigiriya in Sri Lanka write their names and commentary over the "mirror wall", adding up to over 1800 individual graffiti produced there between the 6th and 18th centuries. Most of the graffiti refer to the frescoes of semi-nude females found there. One reads:
Wet with cool dew drops
fragrant with perfume from the flowers
came the gentle breeze
jasmine and water lily
dance in the spring sunshine
side-long glances
of the golden-hued ladies
stab into my thoughts
heaven itself cannot take my mind
as it has been captivated by one lass
among the five hundred I have seen here.
Among the ancient political graffiti examples were Arab satirist poems. Yazid al-Himyari, an Umayyad Arab and Persian poet, was most known for writing his political poetry on the walls between Sajistan and Basra, manifesting a strong hatred towards the Umayyad regime and its walis, and people used to read and circulate them very widely.
Graffiti, known as Tacherons, were frequently scratched on Romanesque Scandinavian church walls. When Renaissance artists such as Pinturicchio, Raphael, Michelangelo, Ghirlandaio, or Filippino Lippi descended into the ruins of Nero's Domus Aurea, they carved or painted their names and returned to initiate the grottesche style of decoration.
There are also examples of graffiti occurring in American history, such as Independence Rock, a national landmark along the Oregon Trail.
Later, French soldiers carved their names on monuments during the Napoleonic campaign of Egypt in the 1790s. Lord Byron's survives on one of the columns of the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion in Attica, Greece.
The oldest known example of graffiti "monikers" found on traincars created by hobos and railworkers since the late 1800s. The Bozo Texino monikers were documented by filmmaker Bill Daniel in his 2005 film, Who is Bozo Texino?.
In World War II, an inscription on a wall at the fortress of Verdun was seen as an illustration of the US response twice in a generation to the wrongs of the Old World:
During World War II and for decades after, the phrase "Kilroy was here" with an accompanying illustration was widespread throughout the world, due to its use by American troops and ultimately filtering into American popular culture. Shortly after the death of Charlie Parker (nicknamed "Yardbird" or "Bird"), graffiti began appearing around New York with the words "Bird Lives".
Modern graffiti art has its origins with young people in 1960s and 70s in New York City and Philadelphia. Tags were the first form of stylised contemporary graffiti. Eventually, throw-ups and pieces evolved with the desire to create larger art. Writers used spray paint and other kind of materials to leave tags or to create images on the sides subway trains. and eventually moved into the city after the NYC metro began to buy new trains and paint over graffiti.
While the art had many advocates and appreciators—including the cultural critic Norman Mailer—others, including New York City mayor Ed Koch, considered it to be defacement of public property, and saw it as a form of public blight. The ‘taggers’ called what they did ‘writing’—though an important 1974 essay by Mailer referred to it using the term ‘graffiti.’
Contemporary graffiti style has been heavily influenced by hip hop culture and the myriad international styles derived from Philadelphia and New York City Subway graffiti; however, there are many other traditions of notable graffiti in the twentieth century. Graffiti have long appeared on building walls, in latrines, railroad boxcars, subways, and bridges.
An early graffito outside of New York or Philadelphia was the inscription in London reading "Clapton is God" in reference to the guitarist Eric Clapton. Creating the cult of the guitar hero, the phrase was spray-painted by an admirer on a wall in an Islington, north London in the autumn of 1967. The graffito was captured in a photograph, in which a dog is urinating on the wall.
Films like Style Wars in the 80s depicting famous writers such as Skeme, Dondi, MinOne, and ZEPHYR reinforced graffiti's role within New York's emerging hip-hop culture. Although many officers of the New York City Police Department found this film to be controversial, Style Wars is still recognized as the most prolific film representation of what was going on within the young hip hop culture of the early 1980s. Fab 5 Freddy and Futura 2000 took hip hop graffiti to Paris and London as part of the New York City Rap Tour in 1983
Commercialization and entrance into mainstream pop culture
Main article: Commercial graffiti
With the popularity and legitimization of graffiti has come a level of commercialization. In 2001, computer giant IBM launched an advertising campaign in Chicago and San Francisco which involved people spray painting on sidewalks a peace symbol, a heart, and a penguin (Linux mascot), to represent "Peace, Love, and Linux." IBM paid Chicago and San Francisco collectively US$120,000 for punitive damages and clean-up costs.
In 2005, a similar ad campaign was launched by Sony and executed by its advertising agency in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Miami, to market its handheld PSP gaming system. In this campaign, taking notice of the legal problems of the IBM campaign, Sony paid building owners for the rights to paint on their buildings "a collection of dizzy-eyed urban kids playing with the PSP as if it were a skateboard, a paddle, or a rocking horse".
Tristan Manco wrote that Brazil "boasts a unique and particularly rich, graffiti scene ... [earning] it an international reputation as the place to go for artistic inspiration". Graffiti "flourishes in every conceivable space in Brazil's cities". Artistic parallels "are often drawn between the energy of São Paulo today and 1970s New York". The "sprawling metropolis", of São Paulo has "become the new shrine to graffiti"; Manco alludes to "poverty and unemployment ... [and] the epic struggles and conditions of the country's marginalised peoples", and to "Brazil's chronic poverty", as the main engines that "have fuelled a vibrant graffiti culture". In world terms, Brazil has "one of the most uneven distributions of income. Laws and taxes change frequently". Such factors, Manco argues, contribute to a very fluid society, riven with those economic divisions and social tensions that underpin and feed the "folkloric vandalism and an urban sport for the disenfranchised", that is South American graffiti art.
Prominent Brazilian writers include Os Gêmeos, Boleta, Nunca, Nina, Speto, Tikka, and T.Freak. Their artistic success and involvement in commercial design ventures has highlighted divisions within the Brazilian graffiti community between adherents of the cruder transgressive form of pichação and the more conventionally artistic values of the practitioners of grafite.
Graffiti in the Middle East has emerged slowly, with taggers operating in Egypt, Lebanon, the Gulf countries like Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates, Israel, and in Iran. The major Iranian newspaper Hamshahri has published two articles on illegal writers in the city with photographic coverage of Iranian artist A1one's works on Tehran walls. Tokyo-based design magazine, PingMag, has interviewed A1one and featured photographs of his work. The Israeli West Bank barrier has become a site for graffiti, reminiscent in this sense of the Berlin Wall. Many writers in Israel come from other places around the globe, such as JUIF from Los Angeles and DEVIONE from London. The religious reference "נ נח נחמ נחמן מאומן" ("Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman") is commonly seen in graffiti around Israel.
Graffiti has played an important role within the street art scene in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), especially following the events of the Arab Spring of 2011 or the Sudanese Revolution of 2018/19. Graffiti is a tool of expression in the context of conflict in the region, allowing people to raise their voices politically and socially. Famous street artist Banksy has had an important effect in the street art scene in the MENA area, especially in Palestine where some of his works are located in the West Bank barrier and Bethlehem.
There are also a large number of graffiti influences in Southeast Asian countries that mostly come from modern Western culture, such as Malaysia, where graffiti have long been a common sight in Malaysia's capital city, Kuala Lumpur. Since 2010, the country has begun hosting a street festival to encourage all generations and people from all walks of life to enjoy and encourage Malaysian street culture.
The modern-day graffitists can be found with an arsenal of various materials that allow for a successful production of a piece. This includes such techniques as scribing. However, spray paint in aerosol cans is the number one medium for graffiti. From this commodity comes different styles, technique, and abilities to form master works of graffiti. Spray paint can be found at hardware and art stores and comes in virtually every color.
Stencil graffiti is created by cutting out shapes and designs in a stiff material (such as cardboard or subject folders) to form an overall design or image. The stencil is then placed on the "canvas" gently and with quick, easy strokes of the aerosol can, the image begins to appear on the intended surface.
Some of the first examples were created in 1981 by artists Blek le Rat in Paris, in 1982 by Jef Aerosol in Tours (France); by 1985 stencils had appeared in other cities including New York City, Sydney, and Melbourne, where they were documented by American photographer Charles Gatewood and Australian photographer Rennie Ellis
Tagging is the practice of someone spray-painting "their name, initial or logo onto a public surface" in a handstyle unique to the writer. Tags were the first form of modern graffiti.
Modern graffiti art often incorporates additional arts and technologies. For example, Graffiti Research Lab has encouraged the use of projected images and magnetic light-emitting diodes (throwies) as new media for graffitists. yarnbombing is another recent form of graffiti. Yarnbombers occasionally target previous graffiti for modification, which had been avoided among the majority of graffitists.
Theories on the use of graffiti by avant-garde artists have a history dating back at least to the Asger Jorn, who in 1962 painting declared in a graffiti-like gesture "the avant-garde won't give up"
Many contemporary analysts and even art critics have begun to see artistic value in some graffiti and to recognize it as a form of public art. According to many art researchers, particularly in the Netherlands and in Los Angeles, that type of public art is, in fact an effective tool of social emancipation or, in the achievement of a political goal
In times of conflict, such murals have offered a means of communication and self-expression for members of these socially, ethnically, or racially divided communities, and have proven themselves as effective tools in establishing dialog and thus, of addressing cleavages in the long run. The Berlin Wall was also extensively covered by graffiti reflecting social pressures relating to the oppressive Soviet rule over the GDR.
Many artists involved with graffiti are also concerned with the similar activity of stenciling. Essentially, this entails stenciling a print of one or more colors using spray-paint. Recognized while exhibiting and publishing several of her coloured stencils and paintings portraying the Sri Lankan Civil War and urban Britain in the early 2000s, graffitists Mathangi Arulpragasam, aka M.I.A., has also become known for integrating her imagery of political violence into her music videos for singles "Galang" and "Bucky Done Gun", and her cover art. Stickers of her artwork also often appear around places such as London in Brick Lane, stuck to lamp posts and street signs, she having become a muse for other graffitists and painters worldwide in cities including Seville.
Graffitist believes that art should be on display for everyone in the public eye or in plain sight, not hidden away in a museum or a gallery. Art should color the streets, not the inside of some building. Graffiti is a form of art that cannot be owned or bought. It does not last forever, it is temporary, yet one of a kind. It is a form of self promotion for the artist that can be displayed anywhere form sidewalks, roofs, subways, building wall, etc. Art to them is for everyone and should be showed to everyone for free.
Graffiti is a way of communicating and a way of expressing what one feels in the moment. It is both art and a functional thing that can warn people of something or inform people of something. However, graffiti is to some people a form of art, but to some a form of vandalism. And many graffitists choose to protect their identities and remain anonymous or to hinder prosecution.
With the commercialization of graffiti (and hip hop in general), in most cases, even with legally painted "graffiti" art, graffitists tend to choose anonymity. This may be attributed to various reasons or a combination of reasons. Graffiti still remains the one of four hip hop elements that is not considered "performance art" despite the image of the "singing and dancing star" that sells hip hop culture to the mainstream. Being a graphic form of art, it might also be said that many graffitists still fall in the category of the introverted archetypal artist.
Banksy is one of the world's most notorious and popular street artists who continues to remain faceless in today's society. He is known for his political, anti-war stencil art mainly in Bristol, England, but his work may be seen anywhere from Los Angeles to Palestine. In the UK, Banksy is the most recognizable icon for this cultural artistic movement and keeps his identity a secret to avoid arrest. Much of Banksy's artwork may be seen around the streets of London and surrounding suburbs, although he has painted pictures throughout the world, including the Middle East, where he has painted on Israel's controversial West Bank barrier with satirical images of life on the other side. One depicted a hole in the wall with an idyllic beach, while another shows a mountain landscape on the other side. A number of exhibitions also have taken place since 2000, and recent works of art have fetched vast sums of money. Banksy's art is a prime example of the classic controversy: vandalism vs. art. Art supporters endorse his work distributed in urban areas as pieces of art and some councils, such as Bristol and Islington, have officially protected them, while officials of other areas have deemed his work to be vandalism and have removed it.
Pixnit is another artist who chooses to keep her identity from the general public. Her work focuses on beauty and design aspects of graffiti as opposed to Banksy's anti-government shock value. Her paintings are often of flower designs above shops and stores in her local urban area of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Some store owners endorse her work and encourage others to do similar work as well. "One of the pieces was left up above Steve's Kitchen, because it looks pretty awesome"- Erin Scott, the manager of New England Comics in Allston, Massachusetts.
Graffiti artists may become offended if photographs of their art are published in a commercial context without their permission. In March 2020, the Finnish graffiti artist Psyke expressed his displeasure at the newspaper Ilta-Sanomat publishing a photograph of a Peugeot 208 in an article about new cars, with his graffiti prominently shown on the background. The artist claims he does not want his art being used in commercial context, not even if he were to receive compensation.
Territorial graffiti marks urban neighborhoods with tags and logos to differentiate certain groups from others. These images are meant to show outsiders a stern look at whose turf is whose. The subject matter of gang-related graffiti consists of cryptic symbols and initials strictly fashioned with unique calligraphies. Gang members use graffiti to designate membership throughout the gang, to differentiate rivals and associates and, most commonly, to mark borders which are both territorial and ideological.
Graffiti has been used as a means of advertising both legally and illegally. Bronx-based TATS CRU has made a name for themselves doing legal advertising campaigns for companies such as Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Toyota, and MTV. In the UK, Covent Garden's Boxfresh used stencil images of a Zapatista revolutionary in the hopes that cross referencing would promote their store.
Smirnoff hired artists to use reverse graffiti (the use of high pressure hoses to clean dirty surfaces to leave a clean image in the surrounding dirt) to increase awareness of their product.
Graffiti often has a reputation as part of a subculture that rebels against authority, although the considerations of the practitioners often diverge and can relate to a wide range of attitudes. It can express a political practice and can form just one tool in an array of resistance techniques. One early example includes the anarcho-punk band Crass, who conducted a campaign of stenciling anti-war, anarchist, feminist, and anti-consumerist messages throughout the London Underground system during the late 1970s and early 1980s. In Amsterdam graffiti was a major part of the punk scene. The city was covered with names such as "De Zoot", "Vendex", and "Dr Rat". To document the graffiti a punk magazine was started that was called Gallery Anus. So when hip hop came to Europe in the early 1980s there was already a vibrant graffiti culture.
The student protests and general strike of May 1968 saw Paris bedecked in revolutionary, anarchistic, and situationist slogans such as L'ennui est contre-révolutionnaire ("Boredom is counterrevolutionary") and Lisez moins, vivez plus ("Read less, live more"). While not exhaustive, the graffiti gave a sense of the 'millenarian' and rebellious spirit, tempered with a good deal of verbal wit, of the strikers.
I think graffiti writing is a way of defining what our generation is like. Excuse the French, we're not a bunch of p---- artists. Traditionally artists have been considered soft and mellow people, a little bit kooky. Maybe we're a little bit more like pirates that way. We defend our territory, whatever space we steal to paint on, we defend it fiercely.
The developments of graffiti art which took place in art galleries and colleges as well as "on the street" or "underground", contributed to the resurfacing in the 1990s of a far more overtly politicized art form in the subvertising, culture jamming, or tactical media movements. These movements or styles tend to classify the artists by their relationship to their social and economic contexts, since, in most countries, graffiti art remains illegal in many forms except when using non-permanent paint. Since the 1990s with the rise of Street Art, a growing number of artists are switching to non-permanent paints and non-traditional forms of painting.
Contemporary practitioners, accordingly, have varied and often conflicting practices. Some individuals, such as Alexander Brener, have used the medium to politicize other art forms, and have used the prison sentences enforced on them as a means of further protest. The practices of anonymous groups and individuals also vary widely, and practitioners by no means always agree with each other's practices. For example, the anti-capitalist art group the Space Hijackers did a piece in 2004 about the contradiction between the capitalistic elements of Banksy and his use of political imagery.
Berlin human rights activist Irmela Mensah-Schramm has received global media attention and numerous awards for her 35-year campaign of effacing neo-Nazi and other right-wing extremist graffiti throughout Germany, often by altering hate speech in humorous ways.
In Serbian capital, Belgrade, the graffiti depicting a uniformed former general of Serb army and war criminal, convicted at ICTY for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide and ethnic cleansing in Bosnian War, Ratko Mladić, appeared in a military salute alongside the words "General, thank to your mother". Aleks Eror, Berlin-based journalist, explains how "veneration of historical and wartime figures" through street art is not a new phenomenon in the region of former Yugoslavia, and that "in most cases is firmly focused on the future, rather than retelling the past". Eror is not only analyst pointing to danger of such an expressions for the region's future. In a long expose on the subject of Bosnian genocide denial, at Balkan Diskurs magazine and multimedia platform website, Kristina Gadže and Taylor Whitsell referred to these experiences as a young generations' "cultural heritage", in which young are being exposed to celebration and affirmation of war-criminals as part of their "formal education" and "inheritance".
There are numerous examples of genocide denial through celebration and affirmation of war criminals throughout the region of Western Balkans inhabited by Serbs using this form of artistic expression. Several more of these graffiti are found in Serbian capital, and many more across Serbia and Bosnian and Herzegovinian administrative entity, Republika Srpska, which is the ethnic Serbian majority enclave. Critics point that Serbia as a state, is willing to defend the mural of convicted war criminal, and have no intention to react on cases of genocide denial, noting that Interior Minister of Serbia, Aleksandar Vulin decision to ban any gathering with an intent to remove the mural, with the deployment of riot police, sends the message of "tacit endorsement". Consequently, on 9 November 2021, Serbian heavy police in riot gear, with graffiti creators and their supporters, blocked the access to the mural to prevent human rights groups and other activists to paint over it and mark the International Day Against Fascism and Antisemitism in that way, and even arrested two civic activist for throwing eggs at the graffiti.
Graffiti may also be used as an offensive expression. This form of graffiti may be difficult to identify, as it is mostly removed by the local authority (as councils which have adopted strategies of criminalization also strive to remove graffiti quickly). Therefore, existing racist graffiti is mostly more subtle and at first sight, not easily recognized as "racist". It can then be understood only if one knows the relevant "local code" (social, historical, political, temporal, and spatial), which is seen as heteroglot and thus a 'unique set of conditions' in a cultural context.
A spatial code for example, could be that there is a certain youth group in an area that is engaging heavily in racist activities. So, for residents (knowing the local code), a graffiti containing only the name or abbreviation of this gang already is a racist expression, reminding the offended people of their gang activities. Also a graffiti is in most cases, the herald of more serious criminal activity to come. A person who does not know these gang activities would not be able to recognize the meaning of this graffiti. Also if a tag of this youth group or gang is placed on a building occupied by asylum seekers, for example, its racist character is even stronger.
By making the graffiti less explicit (as adapted to social and legal constraints), these drawings are less likely to be removed, but do not lose their threatening and offensive character.
Elsewhere, activists in Russia have used painted caricatures of local officials with their mouths as potholes, to show their anger about the poor state of the roads. In Manchester, England, a graffitists painted obscene images around potholes, which often resulted in them being repaired within 48 hours.
In the early 1980s, the first art galleries to show graffitists to the public were Fashion Moda in the Bronx, Now Gallery and Fun Gallery, both in the East Village, Manhattan.
A 2006 exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum displayed graffiti as an art form that began in New York's outer boroughs and reached great heights in the early 1980s with the work of Crash, Lee, Daze, Keith Haring, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. It displayed 22 works by New York graffitists, including Crash, Daze, and Lady Pink. In an article about the exhibition in the magazine Time Out, curator Charlotta Kotik said that she hoped the exhibition would cause viewers to rethink their assumptions about graffiti.
From the 1970s onwards, Burhan Doğançay photographed urban walls all over the world; these he then archived for use as sources of inspiration for his painterly works. The project today known as "Walls of the World" grew beyond even his own expectations and comprises about 30,000 individual images. It spans a period of 40 years across five continents and 114 countries. In 1982, photographs from this project comprised a one-man exhibition titled "Les murs murmurent, ils crient, ils chantent ..." (The walls whisper, shout and sing ...) at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.
In Australia, art historians have judged some local graffiti of sufficient creative merit to rank them firmly within the arts. Oxford University Press's art history text Australian Painting 1788–2000 concludes with a long discussion of graffiti's key place within contemporary visual culture, including the work of several Australian practitioners.
Between March and April 2009, 150 artists exhibited 300 pieces of graffiti at the Grand Palais in Paris.
Spray paint has many negative environmental effects. The paint contains toxic chemicals, and the can uses volatile hydrocarbon gases to spray the paint onto a surface.
Volatile organic compound (VOC) leads to ground level ozone formation and most of graffiti related emissions are VOCs. A 2010 paper estimates 4,862 tons of VOCs were released in the United States in activities related to graffiti.
In China, Mao Zedong in the 1920s used revolutionary slogans and paintings in public places to galvanize the country's communist movement.
Based on different national conditions, many people believe that China's attitude towards Graffiti is fierce, but in fact, according to Lance Crayon in his film Spray Paint Beijing: Graffiti in the Capital of China, Graffiti is generally accepted in Beijing, with artists not seeing much police interference. Political and religiously sensitive graffiti, however, is not allowed.
In Hong Kong, Tsang Tsou Choi was known as the King of Kowloon for his calligraphy graffiti over many years, in which he claimed ownership of the area. Now some of his work is preserved officially.
In Taiwan, the government has made some concessions to graffitists. Since 2005 they have been allowed to freely display their work along some sections of riverside retaining walls in designated "Graffiti Zones". From 2007, Taipei's department of cultural affairs also began permitting graffiti on fences around major public construction sites. Department head Yong-ping Lee (李永萍) stated, "We will promote graffiti starting with the public sector, and then later in the private sector too. It's our goal to beautify the city with graffiti". The government later helped organize a graffiti contest in Ximending, a popular shopping district. graffitists caught working outside of these designated areas still face fines up to NT$6,000 under a department of environmental protection regulation. However, Taiwanese authorities can be relatively lenient, one veteran police officer stating anonymously, "Unless someone complains about vandalism, we won't get involved. We don't go after it proactively."
In 1993, after several expensive cars in Singapore were spray-painted, the police arrested a student from the Singapore American School, Michael P. Fay, questioned him, and subsequently charged him with vandalism. Fay pleaded guilty to vandalizing a car in addition to stealing road signs. Under the 1966 Vandalism Act of Singapore, originally passed to curb the spread of communist graffiti in Singapore, the court sentenced him to four months in jail, a fine of S$3,500 (US$2,233), and a caning. The New York Times ran several editorials and op-eds that condemned the punishment and called on the American public to flood the Singaporean embassy with protests. Although the Singapore government received many calls for clemency, Fay's caning took place in Singapore on 5 May 1994. Fay had originally received a sentence of six strokes of the cane, but the presiding president of Singapore, Ong Teng Cheong, agreed to reduce his caning sentence to four lashes.
In South Korea, Park Jung-soo was fined two million South Korean won by the Seoul Central District Court for spray-painting a rat on posters of the G-20 Summit a few days before the event in November 2011. Park alleged that the initial in "G-20" sounds like the Korean word for "rat", but Korean government prosecutors alleged that Park was making a derogatory statement about the president of South Korea, Lee Myung-bak, the host of the summit. This case led to public outcry and debate on the lack of government tolerance and in support of freedom of expression. The court ruled that the painting, "an ominous creature like a rat" amounts to "an organized criminal activity" and upheld the fine while denying the prosecution's request for imprisonment for Park.
In Europe, community cleaning squads have responded to graffiti, in some cases with reckless abandon, as when in 1992 in France a local Scout group, attempting to remove modern graffiti, damaged two prehistoric paintings of bison in the Cave of Mayrière supérieure near the French village of Bruniquel in Tarn-et-Garonne, earning them the 1992 Ig Nobel Prize in archeology.
In September 2006, the European Parliament directed the European Commission to create urban environment policies to prevent and eliminate dirt, litter, graffiti, animal excrement, and excessive noise from domestic and vehicular music systems in European cities, along with other concerns over urban life.
In Budapest, Hungary, both a city-backed movement called I Love Budapest and a special police division tackle the problem, including the provision of approved areas.
The Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 became Britain's latest anti-graffiti legislation. In August 2004, the Keep Britain Tidy campaign issued a press release calling for zero tolerance of graffiti and supporting proposals such as issuing "on the spot" fines to graffiti offenders and banning the sale of aerosol paint to anyone under the age of 16. The press release also condemned the use of graffiti images in advertising and in music videos, arguing that real-world experience of graffiti stood far removed from its often-portrayed "cool" or "edgy'" image.
To back the campaign, 123 Members of Parliament (MPs) (including then Prime Minister Tony Blair), signed a charter which stated: "Graffiti is not art, it's crime. On behalf of my constituents, I will do all I can to rid our community of this problem."
In the UK, city councils have the power to take action against the owner of any property that has been defaced under the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 (as amended by the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005) or, in certain cases, the Highways Act. This is often used against owners of property that are complacent in allowing protective boards to be defaced so long as the property is not damaged.
In July 2008, a conspiracy charge was used to convict graffitists for the first time. After a three-month police surveillance operation, nine members of the DPM crew were convicted of conspiracy to commit criminal damage costing at least £1 million. Five of them received prison sentences, ranging from eighteen months to two years. The unprecedented scale of the investigation and the severity of the sentences rekindled public debate over whether graffiti should be considered art or crime.
Some councils, like those of Stroud and Loerrach, provide approved areas in the town where graffitists can showcase their talents, including underpasses, car parks, and walls that might otherwise prove a target for the "spray and run".
Graffiti Tunnel, University of Sydney at Camperdown (2009)
In an effort to reduce vandalism, many cities in Australia have designated walls or areas exclusively for use by graffitists. One early example is the "Graffiti Tunnel" located at the Camperdown Campus of the University of Sydney, which is available for use by any student at the university to tag, advertise, poster, and paint. Advocates of this idea suggest that this discourages petty vandalism yet encourages artists to take their time and produce great art, without worry of being caught or arrested for vandalism or trespassing.[108][109] Others disagree with this approach, arguing that the presence of legal graffiti walls does not demonstrably reduce illegal graffiti elsewhere. Some local government areas throughout Australia have introduced "anti-graffiti squads", who clean graffiti in the area, and such crews as BCW (Buffers Can't Win) have taken steps to keep one step ahead of local graffiti cleaners.
Many state governments have banned the sale or possession of spray paint to those under the age of 18 (age of majority). However, a number of local governments in Victoria have taken steps to recognize the cultural heritage value of some examples of graffiti, such as prominent political graffiti. Tough new graffiti laws have been introduced in Australia with fines of up to A$26,000 and two years in prison.
Melbourne is a prominent graffiti city of Australia with many of its lanes being tourist attractions, such as Hosier Lane in particular, a popular destination for photographers, wedding photography, and backdrops for corporate print advertising. The Lonely Planet travel guide cites Melbourne's street as a major attraction. All forms of graffiti, including sticker art, poster, stencil art, and wheatpasting, can be found in many places throughout the city. Prominent street art precincts include; Fitzroy, Collingwood, Northcote, Brunswick, St. Kilda, and the CBD, where stencil and sticker art is prominent. As one moves farther away from the city, mostly along suburban train lines, graffiti tags become more prominent. Many international artists such as Banksy have left their work in Melbourne and in early 2008 a perspex screen was installed to prevent a Banksy stencil art piece from being destroyed, it has survived since 2003 through the respect of local street artists avoiding posting over it, although it has recently had paint tipped over it.
In February 2008 Helen Clark, the New Zealand prime minister at that time, announced a government crackdown on tagging and other forms of graffiti vandalism, describing it as a destructive crime representing an invasion of public and private property. New legislation subsequently adopted included a ban on the sale of paint spray cans to persons under 18 and increases in maximum fines for the offence from NZ$200 to NZ$2,000 or extended community service. The issue of tagging become a widely debated one following an incident in Auckland during January 2008 in which a middle-aged property owner stabbed one of two teenage taggers to death and was subsequently convicted of manslaughter.
Graffiti databases have increased in the past decade because they allow vandalism incidents to be fully documented against an offender and help the police and prosecution charge and prosecute offenders for multiple counts of vandalism. They also provide law enforcement the ability to rapidly search for an offender's moniker or tag in a simple, effective, and comprehensive way. These systems can also help track costs of damage to a city to help allocate an anti-graffiti budget. The theory is that when an offender is caught putting up graffiti, they are not just charged with one count of vandalism; they can be held accountable for all the other damage for which they are responsible. This has two main benefits for law enforcement. One, it sends a signal to the offenders that their vandalism is being tracked. Two, a city can seek restitution from offenders for all the damage that they have committed, not merely a single incident. These systems give law enforcement personnel real-time, street-level intelligence that allows them not only to focus on the worst graffiti offenders and their damage, but also to monitor potential gang violence that is associated with the graffiti.
Many restrictions of civil gang injunctions are designed to help address and protect the physical environment and limit graffiti. Provisions of gang injunctions include things such as restricting the possession of marker pens, spray paint cans, or other sharp objects capable of defacing private or public property; spray painting, or marking with marker pens, scratching, applying stickers, or otherwise applying graffiti on any public or private property, including, but not limited to the street, alley, residences, block walls, and fences, vehicles or any other real or personal property. Some injunctions contain wording that restricts damaging or vandalizing both public and private property, including but not limited to any vehicle, light fixture, door, fence, wall, gate, window, building, street sign, utility box, telephone box, tree, or power pole.
To help address many of these issues, many local jurisdictions have set up graffiti abatement hotlines, where citizens can call in and report vandalism and have it removed. San Diego's hotline receives more than 5,000 calls per year, in addition to reporting the graffiti, callers can learn more about prevention. One of the complaints about these hotlines is the response time; there is often a lag time between a property owner calling about the graffiti and its removal. The length of delay should be a consideration for any jurisdiction planning on operating a hotline. Local jurisdictions must convince the callers that their complaint of vandalism will be a priority and cleaned off right away. If the jurisdiction does not have the resources to respond to complaints in a timely manner, the value of the hotline diminishes. Crews must be able to respond to individual service calls made to the graffiti hotline as well as focus on cleanup near schools, parks, and major intersections and transit routes to have the biggest impact. Some cities offer a reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of suspects for tagging or graffiti related vandalism. The amount of the reward is based on the information provided, and the action taken.
When police obtain search warrants in connection with a vandalism investigation, they are often seeking judicial approval to look for items such as cans of spray paint and nozzles from other kinds of aerosol sprays; etching tools, or other sharp or pointed objects, which could be used to etch or scratch glass and other hard surfaces; permanent marking pens, markers, or paint sticks; evidence of membership or affiliation with any gang or tagging crew; paraphernalia including any reference to "(tagger's name)"; any drawings, writing, objects, or graffiti depicting taggers' names, initials, logos, monikers, slogans, or any mention of tagging crew membership; and any newspaper clippings relating to graffiti crime.
PRESIDIO OF MONTEREY, Calif. -- PRESIDIO OF MONTEREY, Calif. -- In a demonstration of the growing partnership between Presidio and neighboring Cal State Monterey Bay, the university hosted Military Appreciation Day during their men’s and women’s NCAA Division II Soccer matchup against Cal State Los Angeles, Oct. 18.
Service members, veterans, DoD civilians and their families were admitted free of charge and provided a complimentary meal at the Otter Sports Complex as division rivals battled and entertained during two high-caliber, competitive soccer games.
A pre-game ceremony was held in which “Otter Pups” from the Presidio’s youth center stood side by side with the CSUMB men’s team while the national anthem was performed by Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center’s Joint Service Choir and DLIFLC’s Honorary Joint Service Color Guard paraded the colors.
Capt. Kevin Bertelsen, commander Naval Support Activities Monterey, conducted the coin toss to start an exciting men’s game in which CSUMB, playing a man down due to penalties, tied the game with three seconds left only to lose 1-2 in sudden death overtime. The women Otters won their game 2-1.
You can read more about the CSUMB and Presidio of Monterey partnership here at tiny.cc/xw1r4x
Official Presidio of Monterey Web site
Official Presidio of Monterey Facebook
PHOTO by Steven L. Shepard, Presidio of Monterey Public Affairs.
PRESIDIO OF MONTEREY, Calif. – More than 3,000 students from across California visited the Presidio of Monterey on May 13 for DLIFLC’s Language Day. Students, educators and other participants were treated to stage performances, classroom displays and ethnic cuisine, highlighting the cultures of the many foreign languages taught here.
Official Presidio of Monterey Web site
Official Presidio of Monterey Facebook
PHOTO by Steven L. Shepard, Presidio of Monterey Public Affairs.
PRESIDIO OF MONTEREY, Calif. – More than 3,000 students from across California visited the Presidio of Monterey on May 13 for DLIFLC’s Language Day. Students, educators and other participants were treated to stage performances, classroom displays and ethnic cuisine, highlighting the cultures of the many foreign languages taught here.
Official Presidio of Monterey Web site
Official Presidio of Monterey Facebook
PHOTO by Steven L. Shepard, Presidio of Monterey Public Affairs.
PRESIDIO OF MONTEREY, Calif. – More than 3,000 students from across California visited the Presidio of Monterey on May 13 for DLIFLC’s Language Day. Students, educators and other participants were treated to stage performances, classroom displays and ethnic cuisine, highlighting the cultures of the many foreign languages taught here.
Official Presidio of Monterey Web site
Official Presidio of Monterey Facebook
PHOTO by Steven L. Shepard, Presidio of Monterey Public Affairs.