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Safeguards Comprehensive Training Exercise at Dukovany NPP. Czech Republic, 11 June 2015
Photo Credit: Dean Calma / IAEA
Safeguards Comprehensive Training Exercise at Dukovany NPP. Czech Republic, 11 June 2015
Photo Credit: Dean Calma / IAEA
On a visit to Willowbank wild life park with a Flickr friend September 2019 Christchurch, New Zealand.
Founded by the Willis family more than four decades ago, Willowbank is still owned and operated by members of the founding family. With more than 120 000 annual visitors, and growing, Willowbank is popular with local, national and international visitors.
New Zealand’s most comprehensive NZ themed wildlife park, the Willowbank experience tells the story of our country’s natural heritage. Using pioneering and innovative display techniques, with an emphasis on creating a natural environment and an up-close and personal interactive experience, Willowbank showcases one of New Zealand’s best displays of native species. Willowbank was the first to open a glass-free nocturnal house for kiwi in a natural environment, guaranteeing viewings every time.
Willowbank is a New Zealand leader in conservation, with success in many national, Australasian and in-house breeding programmes focusing on New Zealand native and endangered species, as well as many rare and heritage breeds of farm stock. Scientific research projects, and local partners including the Department of Conservation, the Styx River Living Laboratory, the Rare Breeds Society, the NZ Conservation Trust and the South Island Wildlife Hospital, are supported by and work alongside Willowbank.
For More Info: www.willowbank.co.nz/about-us/history/
Comprehensive volleyball tournament of citizens. Boys who participated. My favorite is the boy on the right side. Oeuf ♥
市民総体の時の男子の優勝チームの男子。私は最初から右側の男子を狙っていました(*≧∀≦*)。最後に頼み込んで撮らせてもらったよ～萌え～(*´∀｀*)
The Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre (VCCC) is a unique and ambitious endeavour.
This new facility, delivered as a public private partnership between the Victorian Government and the Plenary Health consortium, has been designed to be a landmark Melbourne site, in a renowned biomedical precinct.
© MURAKAMI, the most comprehensive retrospective to date of the work of internationally acclaimed Japanese artist Takashi Murakami, was on exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum of Art from April 5 - July 13, 2008. Organized by the The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles, the exhibit included more than ninety works in various media spanning the artist’s entire career, installed in more than 18,500 square feet of gallery space across the Morris A. and Meyer Schapiro Wing and Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Gallery.
Among the works included are many of Murakami's acclaimed sculpture figures including the 23-foot-high Tongari-kun (2003–4); Miss Ko2 (1997), a long-legged waitress who has become one of the artist’s signature characters; and Hiropon (1997), a Japanese girl jumping a rope created by milk spurting from her gargantuan breasts. Among the paintings on view will be Tan Tan Bo (2001), as well as Tan Tan Bo Puking—a.k.a. Gero Tan (2002).
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The Brooklyn Museum, sitting at the border of Prospect Heights and Crown Heights near Prospect Park, is the second largest art museum in New York City. Opened in 1897 under the leadership of Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences president John B. Woodward, the 560,000-square foot, Beaux-Arts building houses a permanent collection including more than one-and-a-half million objects, from ancient Egyptian masterpieces to contemporary art.
The Brooklyn Museum was designated a landmark by the New York Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1966.
National Historic Register #77000944
Safeguards Comprehensive Training Exercise at Dukovany NPP. Czech Republic, 11 June 2015
Photo Credit: Dean Calma / IAEA
Safeguards Comprehensive Training Exercise at Dukovany NPP. Czech Republic, 11 June 2015
Photo Credit: Dean Calma / IAEA
Express the relation between the abstract paintings with the lines. Throng the collage to show the idea of the abstraction.
Later phases of Woodside Comprehensive Development Area (Boswell, Mitchell & Johnson, ca. 1970-1974). The same firm had previously designed the trio of high-rise concrete slabs across the way (not pictured), but here we find them shifting to more neighborhoody mid- and low-rise forms, rendered in warm ruddy-colored bricks and with a fair amount of animation and relief in the surfaces. Online details are scarce, which is a shame; I like this one!
Seen here: the low-rise scheme surrounding Braid Square and Unity Place. Here the architects rediscover either Glasgow's rich history of Victorian terraces/townhouses, or early modern experiments like Spangen, or both. While some of the moves in the facade may start to appear arbitrary (particularly the upside-down arch windows), the general sense of animation and variety is welcome. Both the fronts and backs of all the blocks are interesting, and obviously they take strong light beautifully.
Safeguards Comprehensive Training Exercise at Dukovany NPP. Czech Republic, 11 June 2015
Photo Credit: Dean Calma / IAEA
Category A listed historic building.
"The Scottish National Portrait Gallery is an art museum on Queen Street, Edinburgh. The gallery holds the national collections of portraits, all of which are of, but not necessarily by, Scots. It also holds the Scottish National Photography Collection.
Since 1889 it has been housed in its red sandstone Gothic revival building, designed by Robert Rowand Anderson and built between 1885 and 1890 to accommodate the gallery and the museum collection of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. The building was donated by John Ritchie Findlay, owner of The Scotsman newspaper. In 1985 the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland was amalgamated with the Royal Scottish Museum, and later moved to Chambers Street as part of the National Museum of Scotland. The Portrait Gallery expanded to take over the whole building, and reopened on 1 December 2011 after being closed since April 2009 for the first comprehensive refurbishment in its history, carried out by Page\Park Architects.
The Scottish National Portrait Gallery is part of National Galleries of Scotland, a public body that also owns the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh.
The New Town is a central area of Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. A masterpiece of city planning, it was built in stages between 1767 and around 1850, and retains much of its original neo-classical and Georgian period architecture. Its best known street is Princes Street, facing Edinburgh Castle and the Old Town across the geological depression of the former Nor Loch. Together with the Old Town, the New Town was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995.
Edinburgh (/ˈɛdɪnbərə/; Scots: Edinburgh; Scottish Gaelic: Dùn Èideann [ˈt̪uːn ˈeːtʲən̪ˠ]) is the capital of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the Firth of Forth's southern shore.
Recognised as the capital of Scotland since at least the 15th century, Edinburgh is the seat of the Scottish Government, the Scottish Parliament and the supreme courts of Scotland. The city's Palace of Holyroodhouse is the official residence of the monarch in Scotland. The city has long been a centre of education, particularly in the fields of medicine, Scots law, literature, philosophy, the sciences and engineering. It is the second largest financial centre in the United Kingdom (after London) and the city's historical and cultural attractions have made it the United Kingdom's second most visited tourist destination attracting 4.9 million visits including 2.4 million from overseas in 2018.
Edinburgh is Scotland's second most populous city and the seventh most populous in the United Kingdom. The official population estimates are 488,050 (2016) for the Locality of Edinburgh (Edinburgh pre 1975 regionalisation plus Currie and Balerno), 518,500 (2018) for the City of Edinburgh, and 1,339,380 (2014) for the city region. Edinburgh lies at the heart of the Edinburgh and South East Scotland city region comprising East Lothian, Edinburgh, Fife, Midlothian, Scottish Borders and West Lothian.
The city is the annual venue of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. It is home to national institutions such as the National Museum of Scotland, the National Library of Scotland and the Scottish National Gallery. The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1582 and now one of four in the city, is placed 20th in the QS World University Rankings for 2020. The city is also known for the Edinburgh International Festival and the Fringe, the latter being the world's largest annual international arts festival. Historic sites in Edinburgh include Edinburgh Castle, the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the churches of St. Giles, Greyfriars and the Canongate, and the extensive Georgian New Town built in the 18th/19th centuries. Edinburgh's Old Town and New Town together are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site, which has been managed by Edinburgh World Heritage since 1999." - info from Wikipedia.
Summer 2019 I did a solo cycling tour across Europe through 12 countries over the course of 3 months. I began my adventure in Edinburgh, Scotland and finished in Florence, Italy cycling 8,816 km. During my trip I took 47,000 photos.
Now on Instagram.
Become a patron to my photography on Patreon.
Safeguards Comprehensive Training Exercise at Dukovany NPP. Czech Republic, 11 June 2015
Photo Credit: Dean Calma / IAEA
Canning Stock Route, WA. Wide vehicles and general information.
Comprehensive information from ...
westprint.com.au/newsletter-archives-2017
The following is a quote from Westprint...
Col asked about restrictions on the CSR for wider vehicles. I can’t answer about official restrictions but on our trip in 2011 using three 100 Series Landcruisers and a Navara there were numerous times in the swales where we had to pull the mirrors in to get through the scrub which grows right up to the side of the track. It is very tough desert scrub too, putting ‘bush pin Stripes’ on all vehicles. A wide-bodied vehicle will have to bulldozer through all of this. Not a good idea. Laurie.
I did the CSR quite a few years ago, in May/June 2009 from South to North. Friends of mine travelled the CSR in 2007 from North to South.
Regarding the questions about wide track vehicles:
The best (and most reliable) information on access with a wide track vehicle and especially on up-to-date track info can usually be get from directly talking to the locals, especially Wiluna Police (08 9981 7024), Halls Creek Police (08 9168 9777), Kunawarritji Community (08 9176 9040) (GREAT people, very helpful, the new store was under construction when we came along in 2009), Glenayle Station (08 9981 2989) and Granite Peak Station (08 9981 2983).
Outback travel Australia clearly states that the CSR section between wells 2 and 5 through to Cunyu station is permanently closed to all vehicles towing trailers AND to wide-track 4WDs like Isuzu light trucks. That is for a good reason, as the track is very narrow in many places along this section if I remember it right. But whatever the very good reason is, fact is that this is private property. So, if you travel through despite the clearly signposted restrictions you commit trespassing – and I am sure that is not what you want to do.
You would also definitely face extreme physical problems by just not fitting through with your vehicle.
I guess that the latter will also be a severe problem in many other locations along the track of the CSR. A contributing factor may be strong growth from the sides of the track, following all that rain in the area. Conditions vary from year to year due to rain or other weather circumstances, but there definitely are narrow sections. Consider that travelling the CSR would add a lot of deep scratches to the nice paint of your Isuzu. If I were the owner of such a nice truck I would not be keen on damaging it – but that is what you are asking for if you tackle the Canning with it. The tyres will be a big issue, due to the limited track width. You would have to go off-track with the tyres in quite a few places, and hitting the bush along the track will cause awful punctures. When travelling the Talawana track to Windy Corner and up the Gary Highway back in 2008, my mate Harry and I met some very nice blokes travelling with an Isuzu truck with trailer. They were about to start work at an exploration camp, and their boss had had a look at the map and had sent them the shortest route. That was not a good idea. I cannot exactly remember how many times we changed tyres on that Isuzu and the big tandem axle trailer, but it was really a lot of times. When we reached the Canning-Papunya-Road, every tyre had needed patching, even the spare tyres. No fun at all. Fun is what you want during your rewarding CSR trip, and not trouble and worries about your vehicle.
I am sure that you and your vehicle are well-prepared, but ask yourself ‘What happens if?’ If you face major mechanical problems, how can you retrieve your vehicle from the CSR? If you need spare parts along the route, can they be obtained in Newman or be taken to Kunawarritji? A smaller vehicle can usually be fixed more easily, especially if is a type of vehicle which is broadly used in the region, like the Toyota Troopy.
I don’t know the power of your Isuzu, but friends of mine had an Isuzu and admitted that theirs was not overpowered. The dunes along the CSR may require more HPs than you have. And going over the dunes by ‘giving it all the revs’ is asking for mechanical trouble.
Talking dunes: We always started very early in the morning. The sand has more moisture then, is less soft and you face less difficulties getting over the dunes. We chose to travel very early in the year (started the last week of May). It is not too cold then in the night, and we were lucky to have just a nice little spray of rain fall in the morning from time to time which added exactly the right moisture to the sand.
Ask yourself what sort of experience you are looking for along the Canning: Is it the challenge and thrill of tackling the Canning with the Isuzu, facing (and hopefully overcoming) all the problems along the way, or is it the rewarding experience of travelling the Canning without too much worries (there will always be some, however!), taking in all its beauty and rich history? If you are after the second, I would consider renting a suitable vehicle from a specialized company like TCC (Travel Car Centre). Swiss owner Bruno and his guys rent out fully equipped Troopys, complete with sturdy roof tent, heaps of accessories and even some spares and a full set of tools and recovery gear. TCC even have at least one Troopy with a long-range tank - 270 litres -but this needs to be booked well in advance. They have vast experience in renting out vehicles for the Canning, and their cars are in superb mechanical condition. I have rented from their company plenty of times (for CSR, Hay River and French Line through the Simpson, Anne Beadell Highway, Gunbarrel with Abandoned Section et al) and have always been highly satisfied. You could pick up the rental Troopy in Perth and drop it in Darwin. Along the way, I would add a nice side trip through the Gregory National Park, beautiful scenery.
If you do not want to miss the comfort of the Isuzu (or if you are dependent on it due to health conditions), what about an alternative route? Given the right weather conditions, the Canning-Papunya Road (also named Gary Junction Highway if I remember it right) is a great track, which is wide enough for the Isuzu and leads through awesome bush scenery. And from Alice Springs to Halls Creek you could continue via the Tanami Track, given that your vehicle has sufficient fuel range, now that Rabbit Flat Roadhouse has been closed.
There is plenty of advice on safety precautions for CSR trips on the web, for instance here: www.thecanningstockroute.com/what_you_are_responsible_for
I would highly recommend to rent an Iridium Satellite Phone (TCC has one or two they rent out together with the Troopys) and to do an advanced first aid course. If you need advice on an advanced remote area first aid kit, I can send you a list of mine. For instance, most people forget to consider a SAM splint. Being prepared for medical emergencies is vital. I am a volunteer medical first responder and firefighter and have visited and talked to many fire/rescue and emergency medical services folks in outback communities, and they told me heaps of very sad stories about people travelling unprepared.
Vehicle fire is not uncommon along those tracks, due to build-up of vegetation under the vehicle. An old coat hanger made of sturdy wire makes a perfect scratching device to clean off spinifex from under the vehicle. I also carry a garden spray as auxiliary fire extinguisher in addition to the normal fire extinguisher. A normal car fire extinguisher is of great help in case of a small liquid fuel fire, but it is insufficient to tackle a spinifex fire under the car. That is when the garden spray comes in handy. Snakebite, though a rare event, is also a danger to be kept in mind. Remember: There are not only Mulga snakes around, but also very nasty Death Adders, which are small and invisible in the spinifex. They don’t flee human presence, and if you accidentally step on one you are in big, big trouble, far from medical help. I always use sturdy boots in combination with Snakeguardz out in the bush (www.snakeguardz.com). Snakeguardz may look ridiculous (the average Aussie can’t stop laughing upon the sight of this strange Gerry with bright orange Snakeguardz over his long pair of camouflage trousers), but better safe than sorry.
Try to put your hands on a copy of Eric and Ronele Gard’s ‘Canning Stock Route’ (e.g. via eBay) and/or the hard to find Australian Geographic Book of the Canning Stock Route, which has one of the best ever-printed maps of the CSR (make sure that the map is still in the book!). These books provide excellent background info on the CSR.
The CSR is for sure one of the best and most rewarding experiences in Australian Outback 4WDing, but do not underestimate the psychological factor and really, carefully select with whom you travel. The tour companies are notorious for rushing the Canning, and you cannot choose the other guys in the group. But even if you travel with friends: Cases are known where best friends or even couples split up during or after a CSR trip. Tension builds up slowly: Some want to start early, others late. Some want to go faster (and get into trouble, the CSR is notorious for vehicle suspension problems!), others want to take it more slowly and get angry about losing time due to mechanical trouble into which the fast ones will run inevitably. Etc. etc. Make a good plan, which is agreed by everyone but which gives plenty of room for changes and improvisations. Plan where you want to stop and take a day of rest. Durba Springs was my favourite. I did not like Georgia Bore too much, but the fresh water from the pump was a treat, and the toilet there was one of the highlights of the Canning. I have never ever experienced a loo with a belt transport system before, a fascinating piece of Aussie high tech!
Whatever schedule you plan: Do not keep it too tight and put in some spare days. There will be no worries about what to do with the spare days. There are so many great places along the way, for instance a nice side trip to Wolfe Creek Crater (make sure to watch the movie Wolfe Creek beforehand, so that you can really enjoy your night’s sleep there).
Be sure: Something WILL go wrong on the Canning. And cause loss of time. That is when speeding comes in to make up for the lost time, and then the real trouble starts. In any case, avoid speeding on the Canning and always be on the lookout for stupid tourists travelling without sand flag and even without CB radio. There have been awful head-on-collisions.
Check out the forum at Exploroz.com. There are many highly experienced and helpful folks in this forum, and some of them may have experience with wide track vehicles as well and may be able to answer your questions from own hands-on-experience along the CSR.
Whatever you decide to do (CSR with or without the Isuzu): I wish you all the best for your trip, and stay safe!
Cheers from bl..dy boring Dortmund/Germany, Juergen
I refer my previous article re the Canning Stock Route, in which I gave some old *(2000) information about the Store and Fuel at Kunawarritji Community which has been corrected by Garry this last Westprint Maps email. I regret incorrect information, but that, as I say, was based on information that is now *17 years old.
The store was in basic mode back (some ices and drinks) then, and fuel indeed had to come from Hedland, and one was advised that checking before-hand was a good idea (from road conditions as much as anything). The Community Adviser/Manager (white) was also the Store Manager, and did some mechanical and welding repairs to a traveller’s vehicle whilst I was there. He was friendly and a good man, a mine of information, which is not what I would say about some white "Community Managers" I have met in my years of travels. The Community was also a pleasure to visit. I wish that age and infirmity would allow me to return to the CSR! I had come DOWN the CSR first in 1997, and obtained fuel at Kunawarritji (I had heard that many travellers who relied on the Capricorn Roadhouse Fuel Dump arrived with empty tanks, so to speak, and because their marked drum had been emptied by ‘person or persons unknown’ they had to do the same to some other traveller. No wonder this had to cease). The time in 2000, I had come across from Hedland (to Kunawarritji) to go UP the CSR, and it was some time after a Cyclone which had blown over the windmill at Well 33, and done some other damage along the Track. Not the best timing.
I had found on both trips that travelling in the early morning was best (slightly damp and cool sand) but as the day heated up (and this was always in Winter) the sand got very loose, and going over dunes was more a hassle. I will always remember those corrugations. They damaged my Jackaroo Diesel, which caused me much trouble as I travelled East on the Gunbarrel Highway from Wiluna later in 2000, after doing a big loop to come back South from exiting the CSR. Still, it was all a memorable trip. Darryl
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Safeguards Comprehensive Training Exercise at Dukovany NPP. Czech Republic, 11 June 2015
Photo Credit: Dean Calma / IAEA
Comprehensive systems tests like the one recently performed help to ensure missions success by verifying that the James Webb Space Telescope’s electronics and software are all working in unison. Read more about this recent test: www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2020/nasa-s-james-webb-space...
Credits: Northrop Grumman
Safeguards Comprehensive Training Exercise at Dukovany NPP. Czech Republic, 11 June 2015
Photo Credit: Dean Calma / IAEA
Safeguards Comprehensive Training Exercise at Dukovany NPP. Czech Republic, 11 June 2015
Photo Credit: Dean Calma / IAEA
I am always appreciative of views and comments; thank you for taking time to look.
This is a series of 11 images (oil on canvas). Edwin Lord Weeks (1849-1903), an Orientalist painter, was born in Massachusetts, the child of wealthy merchants. The placard at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond states he was a photographer, writer, explorer, collector and illustrator as well. He studied in France under Léon Bonnat. He made trips to Morocco, the Middle East and then India in 1882. Any number of videos featuring his works on India are on YouTube. The paintings depicted are always human with an eye to details. The painting “The Hour of Prayer at Moti Mushid (The Pearl Mosque), Agra” (ca 1888-1889) is large (perhaps 6’ x 3 1/2”) and is filled with amazing details of those gathered for prayer at the mosque. The detailed images show many aspects of this gathering: washing, reading, lounging. Any number of “things” are happening, yet no part detracts from another; all is well-integrated into a comprehensive whole. The architecture is integral to the work. The Moti Mushid, built 1654 in Agra, is an excellent example of Mughal architecture. His original works today can bring a price of more than a million dollars.
The original frame by Lockwood de Forest (1850-1932), another Orientalist, is made of wood with cast and carved ornament and is gilded. The framed painting is the final image in the series.
74 paintings of Weeks—http://www.orientalist-art.org.uk/weekslife.html
111 paintings of Weeks—http://www.edwinlordweeks.org/
YouTube—http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ioe0SZBOB0&feature=youtube_gdata (3:06)
You Tube—featuring Ravi Shankar and Philip Glass
www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFnOe7OX67k&feature=related (7:37)
A list of links to museums with his works is at Art Cyclopedia—
www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/weeks_edwin_lord.html
Biography and assessment of his work—
www.artnet.com/Magazine/FEATURES/karlins/karlins12-3-02.asp
On the Moti Mushid—http://www.asiarooms.com/en/travel-guide/india/agra/sightseeing-in-agra/moti-masjid-agra.html
His account of a journey to India (From the Black Sea through Persia and India) is available in a 16.5 MB .pdf file at www.archive.org/details/cu31924022898526
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
If you use this image on your web site, you need to provide a link to this photo.
Safeguards Comprehensive Training Exercise at Dukovany NPP. Czech Republic, 11 June 2015
Photo Credit: Dean Calma / IAEA
Gorgeous and ornate even through abandonment, the primary stage at the majestic theater has maintained its beauty through intricate painting murals, patterns and a striped curtain that seems to be in almost perfect condition. I truly hope this place receives the funding to reopen.
YOUR COMMENT IS THE GREATEST "AWARD" YOU COULD GIVE -- No graphics please.
THANKS IN ADVANCE FOR ANY COMMENTS!!!
Safeguards Comprehensive Training Exercise at Dukovany NPP. Czech Republic, 11 June 2015
Photo Credit: Dean Calma / IAEA
Comprehensive book of the race won by Ken Russell, Ellis-Briggs Cycles. Like the rest of the books great vintage artwork.
Safeguards Comprehensive Training Exercise at Dukovany NPP. Czech Republic, 11 June 2015
Photo Credit: Dean Calma / IAEA
جلالة الملك عبدالله الثاني، يرافقه سمو الأمير الحسين بن عبدالله الثاني، ولي العهد، يزور مدرسة أيل الثانوية الشاملة للبنين في البادية الجنوبية
His Majesty King Abdullah II, accompanied by HRH Crown Prince Al Hussein, visits the Eil Comprehensive Secondary School for Boys
Dougherty Comprehensive High Scool Marching Band at the Albany State University homecoming parade 2011
Albany, Georgia
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.
Safeguards Comprehensive Training Exercise at Dukovany NPP. Czech Republic, 11 June 2015
Photo Credit: Dean Calma / IAEA