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The Love Language plays April 2, 2009, at the Hideout in Chicago. Photos also posted (along with opening act Mazes) at: www.undergroundbee.com/2009/04/02lovelanguage/index.htm
this t-shirt called Plant Languages is designed for kids collection ( 6-11 years old ) of a dominant theme of ecology. This is idea of imaginative ( or maybe futuristic! ) lesson in the school
UW-Madison’s Language Institute hosted World Languages Day on November 14, 2013 at Union South. This exciting, college-for-a-day experience introduces more than 600 Wisconsin high school students and their teachers to many of the world languages and cultural topics offered at UW-Madison. The event, which features faculty, students and staff, aims to inspire students to pursue a second or third language regardless of their educational and career goals.
Photos by Kerry G. Hill/UW-Madison Division of International Studies
‘If you want to enter into their world, you should understand and know their language’-
This is an old saying about children and this is the way of interaction between the children and the teachers in White Fields Nursery.
‘Tell me the number you were able to toss with the ball’, this was the game today. Children enjoyed playing a target toss game of numbers, which focussed on their gross motor skills and numeracy as well.
In addition to that, children had a flower Math game puzzle, and they completed the flower according to the numbers.
They had so much to do with numeracy today and stuck the numbers on caterpillars, during the numeracy class to learn numbers.
They were involved in the color game, focusing on their identifying skills. Foot print hopping was great for coordination and balancing. They were so creative in collaging feathers on the UAE national bird.
To enhance their literacy skills, they learnt about Phonic ’N’ and its vocabulary.
Today’s Science Activity focused on STEM-Learning.
An excellent learning experience again…
Urmia (Turkish language: Urmu, Urmiyə, اورمیه; farsi: ارومیه) variously translitterated as Oroumiyeh, Orūmīyeh and Urūmiyeh, is a city in and the capital of West Azerbaijan Province, Iran. At the 2006 census, its population was 577,307, with 153,570 households.
The city lies at an altitude of 1,330 m above sea level on the Shahar Chay river (City River). Urmia is the 10th most populated city in Iran. The population is mainly mainly Azerbaijanian Turkish(85-90%), with Kurdish, Assyrian Christian, and Armenian minorities.
Urmia is situated on a fertile plain called Urmia Plain, on western side of Lake Urmia; and eastern side of Turkish border and marginal range of mountains.
Urmia is the trade center for a fertile agricultural region where fruit (especially Apple and Grape) and Tobacco are grown. An important town by the 9th cent., Urmia was seized by the Seljuk Turks (1184), and later occupied a number of times by the Ottoman Turks.
Urmiye (Türkçesi:اورمو, Urmu, اورمیه, Urumiyə;Farsça: ارومیه, Orumieh), İran'ın Batı Azerbaycan Eyaleti'nin yönetim merkezi olan şehir. Şehir, bağlı olduğu eyaletin orta kısmında, Urmiye Gölü ile Türkiye sınırı arasında, kendi adıyla anılan ovada kuruludur. Nüfusu 2006 yılı verileriyle 577,307 kişidir ki Urmiye ülkenin en büyük 10. şehridir.
Urmiye şehrinde nüfusun çoğunluğunu (tahmini 90%) Türklerdir, azınlık kısmınıysa Kürtler, Süryaniler ve Ermeniler oluşturuyor.
Language Assistance (LA)
Pusat Privat dan Terjemahan Bahasa Asing Tersumpah di Bali
Hubungi Language Assistance:
Jalan Nagasari III, Komplek Perumahan Nuansa Penatih, Blok A No.5
Banjar Poh manis, Kelurahan Penatih Dangin Puri
Kecamatan Denpasar Timur 80232
Bali, Indonesia
Email: bantuanbahasa@gmail.com
Website: balilanguageassistance.wordpress.com/
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Background - In my twenties and thirties, a modern languages degree lead into a career in management consultancy training with one of the leading London consultancies.
Later, whilst bringing up a family in Sussex, working part time allowed me to renew an earlier love of sculpture. I have been privileged to develop my skills with some outstanding mentors and professionals. Now with my own studio, sculpture has become a second career.
Current Work – Much of my work is inspired by natural, organic forms and the elements. As I try to find their essential energy and expression, my sculptures often take on a life of their own, assuming varying degrees of human gesture and emotion. At other times, I look directly to the human figure, but remain fascinated by the search for abstraction rather than representation.
lynn warren in studio
My sculptures are largely about mood and movement. This may result in a gentle flow of line and planes, reflecting quiet contemplation, or perhaps more energetically trying to capture the boisterous ‘joie de vivre’ of dancing forms or the movement of a soft breeze. The degrees of abstraction often leave room for your own interpretation.
The strong, dramatic shapes are sometimes resonant of earlier 20th century traditions, but with a lighter, more modern twist, and uplifting energy which can be timeless in appeal.
Method - I work with a variety of clays from smooth terracotta to heavily textured brick clay, sometimes incorporating wood and other materials. Most usually, I cast the final sculptures in my studio, using a variety of metal resin and acid finishes and I thoroughly enjoy controlling the full production process from creation to presentation. I also have work produced for me in foundry bronze.
All my work is suitable for indoors or outdoors. Outdoors you should expect some slight changes in patination over time, particularly with foundry bronzes. If required, I can provide green oak plinths on a black steel base (see photo's) for siting in the garden. The oak will gradually mature to a beautiful silver grey colour with natural cracking which enhances the character of the wood.
Aprende Ingles Online, diariamente compartimos contenido que te ayudarán a dominar el idioma.
Si quieres clases particulares online puedes probar gratis 15 minutos:
Ten members of the Spanish Language Debate Society traveled to Bogotá, Colombia, for the world championships of debate in Spanish, CMUDE 2015.
Town Hall Hilversum, the Netherlands
In the Town Hall of Hilversum, architect Dudok language manages the vertical and horizontal volumes, the set of masses against hollow, flat roofs floating and monumentality. This remarkable and in many ways unique structure, whose first sketches were made in 1924, is considered the masterpiece of brilliant but anti avant-garde architect’s career. When the building was completed in 1931, the public embraced this example of modern architecture, for its balance between form and function, and it seemed traditional in composition, fine craftsmen and high quality finishes and materials used. But above all, it was praised for its monumentality. Some critics, however, felt that the building had an anti – structural arrangement, which was proportionally irresponsible in their ways and accused of diluting Dudok modernist designs or be halfway modernism, playing another contemporary, rather than create a formal language itself. By insisting that its architecture lacked a specific style, critics suggested that their designs were not fluent, thus limited to a strict formula for the entire architecture. However, the end result becomes a sculptural expression of a subject composition. It is a testament to the consistent harmonic form, function, art and human need. Hilversum City Council is not only the magnum opus Dudok ‘s career, but also one of the most successful buildings in the history of the modern movement.
The structure consists of load-bearing walls, reinforced concrete floors and concrete lintels above the horizontal windows, while the roof structure in the council chamber is steel. Its balanced masses make a synthesis of functionality and romanticism. Has been criticized, however the arrangement and construction irresponsible proportions addition forms. The use of overhanging eaves, an unusual feature to the Netherlands, and a simple tree -dimensional asymmetric geometry arranged around a square courtyard provide a modern structure while reflecting the medieval municipalities historicism by the presence of a large and a tower room. It is a masonry construction, using, in addition to reinforced concrete and steel beams, yellow bricks specially made for this project, including all facades. Dudok, who also designed the furniture and interior decoration, yellow bricks ordered in special sizes. Some decorative touches were made with blue and green glazed tiles, red tiles strips, black and gold, as the wall facing the columns of the gallery entrance, covered with light blue tiles or dark details on the bases of columns and red in the upper parts. Blue was also used in other decorative details, particularly in the outer columns coating. In the thin elongated interior columns were used and refined golden tiles, highlighting the dark colour of some soils, covered with marbles combinations, like some of the walls in the lobby or the stairwell. Glass is another recurring element in the sophisticated decoration, not only in window openings where clear glass was used, semitransparent, bevelled and stained glass in some gaps, but also excels in the decorative lighting, also designed by the architect.
The building was restored between 1989-1995 by Dutch Van Hoogevest Architects. Restoration costs caused some scandal, as it was at the time the proposal to sell a Mondrian painting from the collection of the city to pay for the restoration.
Name: Abigail Smith
Class year: 2020
Every house has a view of the mountains in the beautiful town of La Alberca
Flinders charting the gulfs and coast of South Australia.
When the Investigator left England it had a year’s supply of food- salted meat, hardtack- a type of hard baked bread- like a biscuit, and some livestock- sheep, pigs, goats and fowls. They also took presents for the natives. They included looking gasses, mirrors, pocketknives, combs, earrings, beads, red caps, blankets, needles, thread, shoemakers’ knives, scissors, hammers, axes, and hatchets. Flinders did not usually approach Aborigines but waited for them to approach him. He was patient and always kept a respectful distance but he did not record meetings with Aborigines in South Australia as he seldom was on in June 1802 to sail to the Torre Strait and to circumnavigate Australia he took two Aboriginal men with him. One was Bungaree who had sailed with him to Norfolk Island in 1798 with George Bass. The other was Nanbaree and the men were both from the Sydney area. Flinders noted that once they left the Sydney area the men were useless for language translation but helpful in approaching other Aboriginal people. On their northern only fired once Flinders felt unsafe at times when near Aboriginal men. Only one sailor was speared and killed by Aborigines in northern Australian and Flinders was angry that the sailor had caused offence. Retaliation led to one Aboriginal man being killed before Flinders crew moved on. The Investigator expedition was not just about exploring the unknown southern coast but also about describing botanical items, collecting shells etc. Flinders drew the coastline and hills but the voyage artist was Ferdinando Bauer, the botanist was Robert Brown, the mineralogist was John Allen and William Westall was the landscape artist. Drawings and specimens of the voyage ended up in various museums in London and Vienna in particular.
After leaving Cape Leeuwin Matthew Flinders sailed along the Great Australian Bight and started charting and naming places in South Australia starting with Fowlers Bay on 8 January 1802. He named it after one of his officers on the Investigator. As he moved on he named about 135 South Australia coastal sites. On 7 February he named Denial Bay( Ceduna) as there was no major river entering into the bay as he had hoped for followed by Smokey Bay as bush fires had lefty a cloud of smoke across the bay and then he went on to name Streaky Bay as sunlight reflected across the bay give it a streaky appearance. Further south off what is now Elliston he named Flinders Island after his younger brother Samuel. The island group there is known as the Investigator Group of islands. SA’s Flinders Island is not to be confused with Flinders Island in Bass Strait which was named after Flinders by NSW Governor Phillip King. Flinders noted wallabies on this island off Elliston and by the 1820s and 1830 whalers and sealers operated from it. In the 1890s the Schlink family lived on the island with about 1,500 acres growing oats, wheat ad grazing sheep. In 2020 the owners signed an agreement with the SA government to make most of the island a protected environmental area for penguin, seals, and bird life. In 2012 the waters around Flinders Island were appropriately designated as the Investigator Marine Park. Further down the coast Flinders explored the inlet which he named Coffin Bay after Admiral Sir Isaac Coffin. The southernmost point of Eyre Peninsula he named Cape Catastrophe because on 21 February 1802 eight of his crew in a cutter, searching for fresh water, were capsized by a wave and drowned. Captain Flinders were deeply saddened by this disaster and named eight nearby islands after the dead sailors. He next stopped at the first harbour of the gulf which he named Spencer’s Gulf after the First Lord of the Admiralty Lord Spencer. This locality he named Port Lincoln after his home county and the island there he named Boston after the nearest town to his home in Lincolnshire. He also named the Sir Joseph Banks group of islands.
Towards the top of Spencers Gulf he named Middleback Ranges, Hummock Hill (later Whyalla), Point Lowly and at the head of the Gulf he named Mt Brown after the botanist and naturalist on the Investigator and he record a rugged range of mountains. He landed at a site now part of Port Augusta and crossed country to the foot of these ranges which were named such by Governor Gawler in 1839. On the eastern side of Spencers Gulf he named Point Pearce after Mr Pearce of the Admiralty and Hardwick Bay after Charles Yorke who later became Lord Hardwick First Lord of the Admiralty in 1810. He also named Althorpe Islands and Corny Point. Althorpe Islands were named after Lord Spencer’s son Viscount Althorpe. He sailed up Gulf of St Vincent which he named on 30 March 1802 after Admiral John Jervis who was the Earl of St Vincent. He land at the top of St Vincent Gulf at what later became Port Wakefield and named Hummocky Mountain. On the way down St Vincent Gulf he named Mt Lofty from the sea before landing on an island with a plentiful supply of kangaroos. Flinders named it Kangaroo Island on 22 March. The crew needed some fresh meat as they had had none for four months and Flinders recorded that his men killed 31 kangaroos. A hundredweight of kangaroo tails, forequarters and heads were made into soup, and steaks were cut for both officers and crew which they ate for several days. They were able to take on water from Kangaroo Island. Flinders named Investigator Strait for the ocean separating Yorke Peninsula and Kangaroo Island and Backstairs Passage for the strait separating Kangaroo Island and the Fleurieu Peninsula. He named several places near what is now Penneshaw( Kangaroo Head and Point and Marsden) and he named Nepean Bay opposite Cape Jervis after Sir Evan Nepean who was in 1802 the Secretary of the Board of the Admiralty. He named the southern point of Fleurieu Peninsula Cape Jervis after John Jervis the Earl of St Vincent. The accuracy and detail of his charts can be seen in Flinder’s 1814 map of upper Spencers Gulf from his exploration charts and recordings. Upon leaving Kangaroo Island Flinders named Encounter Bay and Baudin’s rock at Robe. The bay there had already been named by French Captain Nicolas Baudin as Guichen Bay. Flinders then moved eastwards but the lower South East coast of SA had already been charted by Captain James Grant in 1800 when he named Cape Banks, Cape Northumberland etc.
Fleurieu Peninsula, Encounter Bay and Baudin.
Captain Nicolas Baudin was in South Australia waters between March and April 1802. On his 1802 voyage Baudin had named in the South East, Carpentier Rocks, Rivoli Bay, Cape Jaffa, Cape Dombey and Guichen Bay (Robe), Lacapede Bay ( Kingston) and finally Fleurieu Peninsula. The Fleurieu was named after Count Charles de Fleurieu a French naval officer, cartographer and the Minister for Marine. On 9 April 1802 Baudin on Le Géographe and Flinders on the Investigator accidentally met at Encounter Bay. Like Flinders voyage this was a scientific voyage too with naturalists, botanists, zoologists etc on board. Despite not speaking French Flinders went aboard the Géographe and met Baudin who spoke some English. Flinders was unaware of the Baudin expedition and asked if Baudin was the captain. Baudin on the other hand knew who Flinders was and new about his voyage. In their discussion Flinders said that he had named Kangaroo Island and nearby geographical features. But when Baudin produced maps of the area back in Paris the name of Kangaroo Island was changed to Ile de Decrès, Backstairs Passage became Détroit de Colbert and Investigator Strait became Détroit de Lacapede. Baudin’s second in charge Louis Freycinet admitted Flinders had made new discoveries and named them but the Parisiennes kept the French names. Freycinet returned to chart more of Spencers Gulf in 1803. Both Baudin and Flinders returned to Port Jackson and the two met again in Sydney in May and June of 1802. The two captains obviously respected each other. When Captain Baudin left Sydney to return to France he took with him, with the Governor Phillip King’s approval, a young convict girl to be his mistress on the voyage. Alas for Nicolas Baudin he died on the voyage home to France in Mauritius in September 1803 aged 49 years. A member of Baudin’s ship Francois Peron published his charts of South Australia whilst Flinders was under house arrest in Mauritius. Francois Peron was the naturalist on Baudin’s voyage. He published his Voyage de decouverts aux Terres Australe with maps in 1807. Every place west of Wilsons Promontory in Victoria was called Terre Napoleon. Louis de Freycinet who accompanied Baudin on most of his voyages also published a second Atlas of Terre Napoleon in 1811 three years before Flinders published his work. Comparisons of Freycinet’s and Flinder’s maps showed the superiority and accuracy of Flinders charts over the French ones. In was only in 1824 that the French authorities acknowledged Flinder’s place names and kept the French ones only for those first surveyed by the Baudin or Freycinet mainly around Kangaroo Island and near Robe. The French still wanted to claim Terre Napoleon although Emperor Napoleon had been replaced by King Louis XV111 in July 1815 just after the Battle of Waterloo ( June 1815) and the demise of Emperor Napoleon. Bourbon King Louis XV111 was a son of the late Louis XV1 who was guillotined on 21 January 1793.
In 1902, during the centenary of Flinder’s survey of South Australia, a tablet commemorating the meeting between Flinders and the Captain Nicolas Baudin was installed on the Bluff at Encounter Bay. The cairn is located at Rosetta Head on the top of the Bluff nearly 100 metres above sea level. It was unveiled by the SA Governor Lord Tennyson. Flinders is also remembered in Victor Harbor with Flinders’ Drive at Encounters Bay ( and there is also a Baudin Drive) and Flinders Parade along the beach front in central Victor Harbor where the giant Norfolk Island pines grow.
Memorials to Flinders in South Australia and Australia.
Although there are numerous memorials to Flinders in South Australia he is one of the few men to have memorials in other states too. Monuments to the achievements and voyages of Captain Matthew Flinders can be found in Tasmania (3), Victoria (13), New South Wales (6), Queensland (11), Western Australia (2) and in South Australia (30) approximately. Although this list refers to cairns and regular monuments Victoria also has the Matthew Flinders High School in Geelong, Flinders Street Railway station in Melbourne, Flinders Street in the CBD, a federal electorate called Flinders and the town of Flinders on Mornington Peninsula. Tasmania has Flinders Island in Bass Strait and The Derwent River and Mt Wellington were named by Matthew Flinders. In South Australia Matthew Flinders is known for naming various geographical features and sites. Boston Bay and Boston Island and Port Lincoln district, Spencers Gulf and St Vincent Gulf, the Flinders Ranges, Mt Brown in the Flinders which was scaled by Flinders and the Investigator’s botanist Robert Brown and named after him. Flinders also named Investigator Strait, Backstairs Passage, Cape Jervis, Kangaroo Island and Encounter Bay. Matthew Flinders is also memorialised in SA with Flinders Street in Adelaide, Flinders Railway Station, Flinders Hospital, Flinders Park a suburb, Flinders Street Baptist Church and Flinders Chase National Park on Kangaroo Island.
Perhaps the most significant memorials to Captain Flinders are the Obelisk on Mt Lofty. It was unveiled by the Governor Lord Tennyson in 1902 to celebrate the centenary of Flinders charting of the SA coast. Another important memorial is in Port Augusta at the site where Flinders and Brown and some crew left the Investigator and crossed to the Flinders Ranges. Other important memorials are at the top of St Vincent’s Gulf in Port Wakefield, at Rapid Bay where a plaque was affixed to the Colonel William Light memorial in 1948. It commemorators the naming and sighting of Backstairs Passage. There is the monument at Rosetta Head at Encounter Bay which is very significant as it commemorates Flinder’s meeting with French Captain Nicolas Baudin. One memorial, seldom visited today, is in Lincoln National Park near Port Lincoln. An easily seen monument was unveiled in 1939 at the spot where Flinders landed near Port Lincoln to search for fresh water as 1939 was the centenary of the town of Port Lincoln. The other is high on a hill in dense scrub within the National Park above Memory Cove. It memorialises the drowning of eight of Flinder’s crew in February 1802 at Cape Catastrophe. Flinders himself left a copper plaque here to commemorate these lost lives but it is not there now but in the possession of the SA Maritime Museum. Now there is a replica plaque at Memory Cove. This was the first European plaque erected in South Australia. An obelisk was erected above Memory Cove during Sir John Franklin’s term of office as Governor of Van Diemens Land between 1836 and 1843. The obelisk on Stamford Hill was built of stone shipped from Van Diemens Land. The monument was restored with a marble facing in 1867. A new bronze plaque was unveiled on it in 1934. In Whyalla there is an iron figure of Flinders and Freycinet appropriately produced with iron from the Whyalla blast furnace.
On Kangaroo Island a plaque was erected at Prospect Hill beside Pelican Lagoon, both named by Flinders’ in 1802 when the Investigator moored at Kangaroo Head Flinders rowed himself across Pelican Lagoon and then climbed Prospect Hill himself on the narrow isthmus linking the Dudley Peninsula with the rest of Kangaroo Island. The plaque was placed here at Hog Bay in 1948. Flinder’s camp was at Kangaroo Head which is almost part of Penneshaw. It was whilst Flinders was at Penneshaw that he sighted and named Mt Lofty. Ironically the big memorial in Penneshaw is to Nicolas Baudin. French Mans Rock Dome Memorial was built in Penneshaw in 1906. At this memorial there are plaques affixed by French naval personnel to commemorate Baudin’s visit to Kangaroo Island. They were placed there in 1986 for SA’s 150 year jubilee, 1988 for the bicentenary of the European settlement of Australia and another plaque was erected there in 1990.
To mark the 20th anniversary of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, and as part of the preparation of a report on “The use of languages by local and regional authorities”, the Council of Europe Congress held a conference on this theme at the Grand Hotel Bálványos Conference Centre, Covasna County, Romania, on 31 May 2018.
The main question on the agenda was how linguistic diversity can be handled by local and regional authorities to the benefit of all concerned. The debates were divided into four thematic sessions on language use in: 1) Local and regional assemblies; 2) Interaction with the administration and citizen participation; 3) place names; and 4) access to public services.
These issues are especially relevant in those member states which have significant linguistic minorities. The Congress has received several complaints on such issues with regard to the implementation of the European Charter of Local Self-Government.
The Conference was organised by the Congress’s Governance Committee and hosted by Covasna County Council. It was opened by Congress President, Gudrun MOSLER-TÖRNSTRÖM; the Romanian member of parliament and former Minister of Culture and President of the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania, Hunor KELEMEN; the Chair of Covasna County Council, Sándor TAMÁS; and the Mayor of the City of Sfântu Gheorghe, Árpád András ANTAL.
We kicked off our very first #HAFashionFriday event by providing Hawaiian Airlines World Elite MasterCard® cardholders with a unique behind-the-scenes exclusive to purchase new products from proudly-supported local designers before they launched in-store. Our inaugural event included our friends from Katrina Cordova, Kira Hawaii, B D'Angelo, Manuheali‘i, Fighting Eel, Mahiku, Language of the Birds, Sticks & Stones, Noho Designs, and Lucky We Live Hawaii!
meaning "Word" (translation): a study in German philologic humor and poetry
My AP art concentration focuses on the humorous and sometimes poetic literal translations of common German words. The German language commonly builds nouns as composites of other morphemes, linguistic units of meaning. Each of these compounds, when translated literally, provides the listener with an intuitive understanding of the meaning. Not only does this method yield high comprehensibility, but it gives each word its own identity.
Fiction bins at Corinna School with sign language labels www.deaf.org.nz/resources/learn-new-zealand-sign-language...
Dan Swan addresses students from across Oklahoma at the 15th Annual Oklahoma Native American Youth Language Fair on April 3. CHALENE TOEHAY-TARTSAH/Osage News
Eh. It's eisā season here. This poster is in my big bro's office and I've featured it here several months (years?) ago. My dad and I helped him paint one of the rooms in his office. I'll also have to welcome my big bro to Apple (well, kinda-sorta) as a brand spankin' new whiteiPod nano 4GB owner. Getting him to buy a Mac is next. ;)
Graffiti 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.
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.
Photo: Linda Tammisto / University of Helsinki
Kansainvälisiä opiskelijoita opiskelemassa suomen kieltä
International students are learning Finnish language
Vicenza High School students visit their Italian partner school, Liceo Scientifico Statale G.B. Quadri in Vicenza, Italy, April 18 for a day of expanding language competence and cultural familiarity. Language teachers in both schools have cooperated for more than a decade to build their school exchange program.
Where there are humans, there are stories. Some stories have such strong roots in our psyche that we have coined words after characters in them. We call such a word an eponym, from Greek epi- (upon) + -onym (name). The English language has thousands of words coined after people, both real and fictional. This week we'll feature five, coined after fictional people.
Today's word of the day is Sinon, named after Sinon, a Greek man who, by his false tale, persuaded the Trojans into taking the wooden horse inside Troy. Also from the Greek word sinomai (to harm or hurt).
Learn more at: wordsmith.org/words/sinon.html
For more information about English language courses at Cape Studies, please visit www.CapeStudies.com