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Strathclyde PTE Volvo Ailsa A10 negotiates Roe Street on the Gyratory in Liverpool in July 1981. It was painted in West Midlands PTE livery as it had spent some time on demonstration in Birmingham. It didn't last very long here before heading back up to Glasgow via Sheffield.
Partly cloudy skies over western Mass enabled me to get sunny shots of the PAR manifest stuck in Tyters siding in Athol. Power for this train is three C40-8s acquired second-hand from CSX. Leading is MEC #7575, which avoided the notorious Pan Am "rainbow" of engines supposedly created by vandals.
Starting in 2017, Pan Am went on a Dash 8 shopping spree to replace its dilapidated fleet of EMDs. Since then, these Dash 8s have become the prevalent workhorse on Pan Am road freights. A few of them have already been repainted into PAR colors, but for now, we're stuck with these bastardized CSX motors.
saqibsomal.com/2016/02/02/assassins-creed-identity-month-... -http://saqibsomal.com/2016/02/02/assassins-creed-identity-month-on-ios/ - saqibsomal.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/assassin-creed-...
This is the new identity for Vincent Rustuel, a very talented photographer I am really pleased to work with...
Cochranemill Road , Johnstone , 30/06/90 , back in the days when there were decent buses there!This ofcourse was after the Western / Clydeside merger and Greenock had become a Western depot once more , wasnt to last long though , as it passed back to Clydeside 2000 upon formation of that employee owned shambles.GD341 (E341WYS) was new at Greenock depot , though here , in Western livery with Greenock depot codes had probably just been sent up for a heavy dock and used on the sly!The erstwhile Grahams Bus Service had'nt long bitten the dust here either , what with the former Western stick Leopard from the OSJ-R batch seen in the background having recieved a hasty bottom half repaint in old western red and cream and old Clydeside names applied.Also , between the Leopard's is GD342 , still in Clydeside livery , and also RML900 just in shot.
Museum Fünf Kontinente, Munich, Germany.
The Sican (also Sicán) culture is the name that archaeologist Izumi Shimada gave to the culture that inhabited what is now the north coast of Peru between about 750 and 1375. According to Shimada, Sican means "temple of the Moon".[1]
The Sican culture is also referred to as Lambayeque culture, after the name of the region in Peru. It succeeded the Moche culture.
There is still controversy among archeologists and anthropologists over whether the two are separate cultures.
The Sican culture is divided into three major periods based on cultural changes as evidenced in archeological artifacts.[2]
Archaeologist Izumi Shimada, founder of the Sican Archaeological Project, named the prehistoric culture which he discovered in northwestern Peru. They succeeded the Moche and preceded the Inca Empire, the historical civilization that encountered the Spanish explorers and conquistadors.
The Sican inhabited a coastal territory near the La Leche and Lambayeque Rivers. The archaeological sites span the Lambayeque region, including the Motupe, La Leche, Lambayeque, and Zaña valleys, near modern-day Chiclayo.[2] Numerous sites have been identified in the Batán Grande area of the La Leche Valley.
The climate of the area during Sican occupation was similar to the current climate, despite changes in landscape accumulated in the last 600 years. The drought-and-flood cycles seen in the region for the past 1500 years did not spare the Sican culture. (Goldstein and Shimada 2007, p. 49)
The Early Sican period began around 750 and lasted until 900. The lack of artifacts has limited the development of knowledge about this early period.
The Sican were probably descendants of the Moche culture, which fell around 800. Their works shows shared motifs in the artifacts recovered.[3]
Similar groups include Cajamarca, Wari and Pachacamac. From remains found in the archaeological locations, researchers have determined that this culture maintained commercial exchange with people from present-day Ecuador (shells and snails), Colombia to the north (emeralds and amber), Chile to the south (blue stone), and the eastern basin of the Marañón River (seeds of gold).
The Lambayeque culture may have been a separate trading people as well.
Around 800, the Sican created the city of Poma, located at Batán Grande, in La Leche Valley. Few other Early Sican sites have been discovered.
The Early Sican culture is known for the highly polished, black-finish ceramics found in the La Leche Valley. This black-finish ceramic style began in the Moche culture prior to the Early Sican, and shows the sharing of cultures in the region.
Much of the ceramics were examples of a single spout, loop-handle bottle, featuring an anthropomorphic-avian (bird) face at the spout base. The face consisted of bulging eyes, a hooked beak or triangular projection instead of a nose, stylized ears, and no mouth.
It appeared to be a predecessor to the related faces of the Sican Deity and the Sican Lord of the Middle Sican culture. (Shimada 2000, p. 51)
Aside from the shared ceramic styles, much of the Early Sican defines a distinguishable culture. While the ceramic styles and iconography show some continuity with previous cultures, the combination of all the influences is Sican.
The changing ceramic styles, iconography, and funerary practices reflect a change in religious ideology and cosmology that expressed the Sican culture. Most importantly, the late Early Sican period saw the accumulation of these changes in art style and iconography, coupled with other changes in organization, by which the Sican constructed monumental adobe structures, developed large-scale copper alloy smelting and metalworking, and developed the elaborate funerary tradition that would come to characterize the Middle Sican (Shimada 1985, p. 361).
Such changes have been seen by researchers at sites in Batán Grande, including the Huaca del Pueblo site, dated to around 850-900.
The Middle Sican period lasted from 900 to 1100 . This is the period of the Sican's “cultural florescence,” and is marked by the emergence of various cultural innovations, some of which were unprecedented in the local area.[3]
The decline of the Wari Empire and the Middle Cajamarca polity enabled the resurgence in local political and religious identity and autonomy.[3]
The Middle Sican culture is marked by distinctive characteristics in six areas: art and ideology, crafts and technology, funerary customs, long-distance trade, religious cities and monumental temples, and the structure and authority of the state (Shimada 2000, p. 52-61; Shimada 1985, p. 365-369).
Together, these characteristics provide evidence that the Sicán culture had a highly productive economy, clear social differentiation, and an influential religious ideology. The religious ideology was the underpinning of the structure of their theocratic state.[3]
Sicán art is representational in style and religious in nature. Features such as sculptural representation and the minimization of number of colors (one to three), were common among the art of many earlier cultures that flourished on the north coast of Peru.[3] Sicán art reconfigured the motifs, conventions, and concepts of these antecedent cultures (mainly the Wari and Moche) into an overall new and unique style. The references to the old ideas, images and ways of antecedent cultures in Sicán art would have been useful in providing prestige and legitimacy to the new Sicán religion which was emerging.[3]
Sicán iconography is dominated by the Sican Deity[4][5] It decorates all artistic media of the Sicán, including ceramics, metal works, and textiles.[3] The icon is most commonly represented with a mask face and upturned eyes.[2]
Sometimes it may be shown with avian features, such as beaks, wings, and talons, which are evident in Early Sicán ceramics.[3]
These avian features are related to Naylamp, the key figure in Sicán mythology. The name "Naylamp" was first mentioned by the Spanish chronicler Miguel Cabello Valboa, who referred to the Moche figure "Naymlap" in his 1586 Miscelánea Antártica.
Later authors believe the form is Mochica Ñañlap, of which the first part is ñañ "waterfowl"; a connexion has been made between the Moche and Chimú cultures and the empire of Chimor and the Mochica language.
Sican gold cup, 850-1050
Naylamp was said to be the founder of the first dynasty of prehistoric kings in La Leche and Lambayeque valleys. In The Legend of Naylamp, first recorded in the 16th century by the Spanish chronicler Miguel Cabello de Balboa, Naylamp is said to have traveled on a balsa raft by sea to the Lambayeque shores. He founded a large city, and the 12 sons of his eldest son each founded a new city in the Lambayeque region.
When Naylamp died, he sprouted wings and flew off to another world (Nickle Arts Museum 2006, p. 18 and 65).
Middle Sicán art did not change the concept or representation of the icon of the Sicán Deity. Both the preceding Moche and Wari cultures feature a single dominant male figure, and the upturned eyes characteristic of the Sicán Deity are common to the art and iconography of other Pre-Hispanic societies.
The iconography accompanying the Sicán Deity was unique and significant (Nickle Arts Museum 2006, p. 66).
Iconography of the moon and the ocean may symbolize the Sicán Deity's involvement in the wellbeing of marine life and fishermen. Iconography related to water signifies the importance of irrigation and agriculture to the Sicán.
Other iconography, such as of the sun and moon, symbolizes the importance of duality in both human and celestial life.
Depictions of the Sicán Deity with tumi knives and trophy heads may indicate his omnipotent control in both human life and the celestial world (Nickle Arts Museum 2006, p. 66; Shimada 2000, p. 52-53). Through the iconography which the Sicán associated with the icon, anthropologists theorize that the Sicán Deity may have been attributed with power to control all of the celestial forces fundamental to life and abundance (Shimada 2000, p. 53).
The lack of representation of humans in Middle Sicán art emphasizes the omnipresence of the Sicán Deity in Sicán iconography.
The only exceptions are representations of the Sicán Lord, the male elite personage, and his entourage. (Shimada 2000, p. 53)
Iconography of the Sicán Lord is almost identical to the Sicán Deity, except that he is shown in natural settings and does not have avian features.[2][5] The Sicán Lord was probably meant to represent an earthly alter-ego of the
The population of Batán Grande included many skilled artisans. Craft production during the Middle Sican flourished and became one of the leading characteristics of the period.
The highly polished black finish ceramics from the Early Sican bloomed in this later phase, along with metallurgy; however, the ceramic technology used in the Middle Sican developed over 2500 years from local pottery production techniques (Shimada and Wagner 2001, p. 26).
Workshops, such as the one found at Huaca Sialupe to the west of Batán Grande, likely had both pottery and metalworking production sites (Goldsmith and Shimada 2007, p. 45).
Ceramics allowed for a medium to convey political and religious ideology in the forms of storage vessels, architectural ornaments, cooking vessels, sculptures of the Deity or animals, and other types proliferated during this period.[2][5]
The potters likely worked separately from one another, rather than in assembly-line type production. Huaca Sialupe excavations produced clusters of similar kilns using local hardwood for charcoal.
Field experiments indicated that the kilns were used either for ceramics or metallurgy (Shimada and Wagner 2001, p. 28).
The Paleteada ceramics used the paddle-and-anvil technique to form and decorate pottery, primarily with geometric designs (Cleland and Shimada 1998, p. 112).
The monochrome black pottery became widely popular across the region during the Middle Sican as the Sican themselves began to emphasize the black pottery, with the help of the Middle Sican religious prestige.
Only the geometric designs continued on the pottery into the Late Sican.[2]
Metallurgy is one of the Sican's greatest legacies, lasting nearly 600 years at Batán Grande (Shimada and Merkel 1991, p. 83). Some Middle Sican workshops showed multicraft production and it is likely the crafts competed for resources, such as fuel for kilns.
Middle- and high-status burials both contained the black ceramics, while only the social elite had access to the precious metal object; therefore, metalworking probably was given production preference by the elites (Goldsmith and Shimada 2007, p. 47).
The greatness of Middle Sican metallurgy was the large scale smelting and diverse use of arsenical copper, which was more ductile and corrosion-resistant than pure copper.[2][5]
The great amounts of smelting and/or metalworking sites found in the Lambayeque region point to the convergence of major factors to allow such an occurrence: accessible ore deposits, extensive forests for hardwood to make charcoal, pottery making tradition using efficient kilns, gold working tradition that formed the basis for later metalworking technology, and a demand for goods by the elites (Shimada, Goldstein, Wagner, Bezur 2007, p. 339).
The large number of smelting sites also point to the amount of labor required by using their method. In modern standards, their copper-alloy smelting was inefficient, which could have led to the high number of workshops with multiple furnaces (Shimada and Merkel 1991, p. 85).
The precious metal objects found in Middle Sican sites reveal the unprecedented scale of their production and use.
Metal objects permeated all levels of society. Tumbaga, a thin sheet of low karat gold alloy, was used to wrap ceramic vessels for the lower elites, while the upper elites had high karat gold alloys.
Common laborers only had arsenical copper objects. The precious metal objects then clearly demonstrate a hierarchy within the society (Shimada 2000, p. 56).
No evidence of metalworking at the large sites has been uncovered, such as the Middle Sican capital Sican or elsewhere in the Batán Grande area, but the precious metal objects were clearly for the elites.
From their high status sites, the elites supervised the manufacturing of their precious metal objects for ritual or funerary purposes (Shimada and Merkel 1991, p. 86).
Excavations of religious sites have revealed much about the funerary practices of the Sicán people.
These funerary practices have helped anthropologists understand the broader organization and structure of Sicán society and religion.
Most of the evidence for these funerary practices has been based on excavations carried out at the Huaca Loro site in Poma by Izumi Shimada and the SAP.
First of all, the funerary practices at Huaca Loro reflect the social differentiation and hierarchy present Sicán society. This social stratification is revealed in varying burial types and practices, along with accompanying grave goods.
The most obvious difference in burial type based on social hierarchy was that commoners were buried in simple, shallow graves on the peripheries of the monumental mounds while the elite of Sicán society were buried in deep shaft tombs beneath monumental mounds, as shown in the East and West tombs at Huaca Loro.[5][6]
Secondly, it was found that one's social status was also a determinant of the burial position of the body; seated, extended, or flexed. For example, bodies of the High Elite were always buried in the seated position, while commoners could be buried in a seated, extended, or flexed position (Nickle Arts Museum 2006, p. 87; Shimada et al. 2004).
Furthermore, social differentiation is manifested even within the elite tombs at Huaca Loro, through the grouping and placement of bodies.
The complex internal organization of both East and West Tombs was designed according to specific social and kinship relationships (Shimada et al. 2004).
Recent studies that included the use of MtDNA (systematic mitochondrial DNA) analysis and inherited dental traits analysis revealed that women in the West Tomb were grouped according to their kinship ties to the principal personage and each other (Shimada et al. 2005; Shimada et al. 2004).
The grouping of women in the south part of the West Tomb were found to be maternally related to one another, as well as the principal personage; the grouping of women in the north part of the West Tomb were found to not only be unrelated to one another, but also unrelated to the principal personage.
Further, ceramics in the south part were found to be of typical Middle Sicán style, while the ceramics in the North part were of a Mochica style (Shimada et al. 2005; Shimada et al. 2004).
'
This evidence suggests that while the women of the South part of the West tomb were grouped and placed according to their kinship ties with the principal personage, the women of the North part of the West tomb had no kinship ties with the principal personage or each other therefore were placed and grouped according to some other distinct relationship to the principal personage.
This genetic evidence and along with the differing styles of ceramics suggests that the North-niche women of the West Tomb were perhaps descendants of a different ethnic group, the Moche, who had been integrated into Sicán society under political domination (Shimada et al. 2004).
While these relationships have not been proved definitively, it shows the great complexity itself of elite burial practices based on social differentiation.
Social stratification and hierarchy is also evidenced through the variation in quantity and quality of grave goods associated with those of different social status.
The elite East Tomb at Huaca Loro, contained over a ton of diverse grave goods, over two-thirds of which were objects of arsenical bronze, tumbaga (low-karat gold), silver and copper alloys, and high-karat gold alloys.[7][8]
Other grave goods of the elite included semi-precious stone objects, amber, feathers, textiles, imported shells (such as conus and spondylus), shell beads, and double spout bottles. (Nickle Arts Museum 2006, p. 87; Shimada 2000, p. 56; Bruhns 1994, p. 290)
On the other hand, commoner burials had a significantly less amount of grave goods of different types, made of less valuable materials.
For example, commoner grave goods at Huaca Loro were usually restricted to single-spout bottles, utilitarian plain and/or paddle decorated pottery, and copper-arsenic objects, instead of the precious metal objects of the elite tombs. (Nickle Arts Museum 2006, p. 87, Shimada et al. 2004)
The power of the elite of Sicán society is demonstrated not only by the amount, quality, and diversity of exotic and status goods accumulated in the tombs, but also by the amount of time and labor that would have gone into making and acquiring them. (Shimada 2000, p. 56)
All together, the construction of the monumental mound at Huaca Loro, the preparation of the East and West Tombs and performance of the associated rituals required careful and complex planning, and considerable material, labor resources and time, and suggests the elite's control and monopoly of power in society.[2]
Secondly, the funerary practices of the Sicán suggest the existence of an elite lineage that used the new Sicán religion to demonstrate and maintain their power (Shimada et al. 2004).
The Sicán elite used funerary practices as a way to symbolize their relationship to the divine. The sheer size and grandeur of the monumental mounds built above the elite tombs would have been awe-inspiring to Sicán citizens and a symbol the divine nature of the figures buried below. (Shimada et al. 2004)
Colorful murals with religious iconography decorated ceremonial precincts in the temples of the mounds, establishing the sanctity of the ritual space, and reaffirming this connection of the buried elite below to the divine. (Nickle Arts Museum 2006, Shimada et al. 2004)
Also, the principal personage of the East Tomb at Huaca Loro wears a mask identical to the Sicán Deity, which is another reference to his relationship to the Deity and the divine. (Shimada et al. 2004, p. 389)
The construction itself of these monumental mounds served as a reminder of the elite's power and endurance, and combined with the symbolic use of Sicán religious iconography to justify the divine merits of the elite lineage, was an attempt by the Sicán elite to “preserve the status quo of inherited rights.” (Shimada et al. 2004, p. 370)
The funerary rites and rituals performed by the living lineage members served to further reinforce their lineage identity and the three-way relationship between the divine, the dead, and the living elite. (Shimada et al. 2004, p. 389)
The variety of grave goods suggests the wide range of power of the Middle Sican elite.
They not only received the most grave offerings, but also the best quality and exotic offerings.
None of the metalworking sites showed evidence of on-site mining of any of the materials.
In addition, the spondylus shell, emeralds, feathers, and other minerals were imported to the area. Their materials came from mainly the northern Andes, such as Ecuador (from the Manteno and Milagro cultures), Peru, Colombia, but could have also reached as far south as the Tiwanaku empire in the south-central Andes and east to the Marañón River, a major tributary of the Amazon River.[2][5][9]
The Middle Sican trade networks appear to be unprecedented in range and goods involved, which helped to insure the spread of Sican religion and polity outside of the Lambayeque and La Leche valleys (Shimada 2000, p. 58).
They also could have controlled the transport methods in addition to the goods being traded. The breeding and herding of llamas on the North Coast since the time of the Moche could have been utilized by the Sican to provide the goods as well as a caravan of llamas to transport the goods considerable distances (Shimada 1985, p. 391).
The Sicán culture is characterized by the establishment of religious cities with monumental temples.[2][5]
The religious capital city and cultural center of the Middle Sicán is referenced as the Sicán Precinct. (Bruhns 1994, p. 293).
This T-shaped area is defined by monumental mounds of Huaca Loro, El Moscón, Las Ventanas, La Merced, and Abejas built between around AD 900 and 1050.[5][10] The pyramidal monumental mounds were used as both burials sites for the elite and places of worship and ritual.[2][10]
The construction of the monumental mounds required considerable material, labor resources and time, indicating the Sicán elite's control and monopoly over the society's resources and manpower.
They are a dramatic symbol of the power, wealth and permanence of the Middle Sicán elite and their theocratic state that dominated much of the north coast.[2]
Two types of mounds are found in the Lambayeque Valley dating to the Sicán. The first type is the T-shaped mound, which is a relatively low mound with a short, central ramp providing direct access to the top of the mound.
The second type is a relatively tall mound with steep sides and a zig-zagging ramp to provide circuitous access to the mound top. This second type also featured an enclosed structure at the top of the mound, likely for private rituals, whereas the first type of mound was likely for public rituals (Shimada 2000, p. 60; Shimada, Shinoda, Farnum, Corruccini, Watanabe 2004, p. 388).
The mounds also covered and protected the shafts of tombs of elites underneath.
The Sicán used a walled-chamber-and-fill technique (which first appeared on the North Coast during Moche V) for constructing the monumental mound where the walls were created by adobe bricks and mortar in conjunction with chambers of superimposed lattices filled with refuse and other readily available materials.[2][5][11]
Marks on the adobe bricks used to make the mounds are indications of the patrons donating materials and/or labor for the construction of the temples (Shimada 2000, p. 60).
This construction technique required “large-scale, unified construction with centrally pooled materials and labor force” (Shimada 2000 p. 60). It allowed for rapid erection of monumental buildings while minimizing labor and material investment and promoted the centralization of political and religious power in order to plan and complete these monumental mounds.[2][12]
Agriculture and canals
While the Sican ceramics and metallurgy are vastly studied, agriculture during the Middle to Late Sican may have been linked to their increasing craft production.
Shimada suggests that the canals at Pampa de Chaparri were developed by the Sican as part of an agro-industrial complex marked by an increase in mining and smelting operations, settlement growth, and the expansion of agriculture.[13] Along the canals, 39
Middle Sican sites and 76 Late Sican sites were identified; however, few sites were located in the irrigation fields.
This Sican occupation at the irrigation system points to its construction during the Middle Sican. The construction of this irrigation system, as well as the association of hierarchical social units and canal branches, coincides with the rapid and dramatic growth of the Middle Sican. Irrigation for agriculture was a necessity for the Sican elite to produce a surplus of food to feed artisans and laborers, who in turn support the elites.[14]
The Late Sican period began around 1100 and ended with the conquest of the Lambayeque region by the Chimú kingdom of Chimor circa 1375.
Around 1020, a major drought lasting 30 years occurred at Sican. At the time of the drought, the Sican Deity, so closely tied to the ocean and water in general, was at the center of Sican religion. The catastrophic changes in weather were thus linked to the Sican Deity, mainly to the failure of the Sican Deity to mediate nature for the Sican people.[15]
The Sican ceremonies (and temples/mounds on which they were performed) were supposed to ensure that there was an abundance of nature for the people.
The elites were the mediators between the common people and the Sican Deity, as the Sican Deity was the mediator between nature and the Sican people.[15]
After 30 years of uncertainty in respect to nature, the temples that were the center of Middle Sican religion and elite power were burned and abandoned between 1050 and 1100.
Perhaps the ancestor cult and aggrandizing of the elites caused too much resentment. Coupled with the drought that surely weakened agriculture in the area, the tolerance of the common population plummeted, forcing the removal of the political and religious leadership at Sican to save the people.[2]
There was little or no repair of the destruction of Sican, and further damage was inflicted by El Nino floods around 1100.
The burning and abandonment of the previous capital meant that a new capital needed to be built. Túcume or "el Purgatorio" was constructed as the new Late Sican capital at the juncture of the La Leche and Lambayeque Valleys.
Túcume became the new religious and ceremonial center of the Sican. The religious and iconographic legacies of the Middle Sican abruptly disappeared. It is at this juncture, when the Sican Deity and Sican Lord disappear from art, is when the Late Sican begins.
Other mythical depictions from the Middle Sican continued in the Late Sican and reflect the revitalization of the religion going back to tradition relationships with nature. Icons include felines, fish, and birds that were secondary to the Sican Deity during the previous era, but were also linked to previous cultures in the area.
Sican material culture, such as ceramics and metallurgy, unrelated to religion or politics did not suffer a severe change during the Middle Sican to Late Sican transition.[2][5][15][16]
Agriculture and irrigation were also not affected by the transition of political and religious power, as evidenced by the lack of effects on Pampa de Chaparri and numerous large urban hill-side settlements.[14][17]
Túcume took on the religious and ceremonial prestige as the site of Sican claimed during the Middle Sican. The mounds and temples from the Middle Sican were continued into the Late Sican since the idea of mounds were not associated with the fall of the Middle Sican, only those mounds in Batán Grande.
The same types of ceremonial and religious artifacts made from the same materials were found at Túcume.
The site grew enormously during its 250-year Late Sican occupation. By the time of the Chimú conquest of the Lambayeque region in 1375, there were 26 major mounds and enclosures.
The site is built on 220 hectares around the La Raya Mountain. Túcume is seen as the reorganization and reunification of the Sican elite and Sican population as a whole until the fall of the Sican to the Chimú.[17]
A 1963 Leyland Titan PD2A/27 with Weymann 65-seat bodywork, seen at Cardiff Bus Station on Friday 7th January 1977. The vehicle carries the fleetname of Western Welsh, but by this time the company had been merged, under National Bus Company auspices, with the neighbouring Red & White company, based at Chepstow. It had been numbered into the Red & White system as H1563. Eventually both these long-established operators disappeared into a new undertaking called "National Welsh".
copyright © 2011 by Abrar Razzak,
Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited except where noted otherwise
“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.”
~ Oscar Wilde
Who am I?
Duality
Aspects of my Identity
HKD
Identitätskrise
Durch die Fragen, die man sich auf der Reise zu sich selbst (die Quest) stellt, zum Beispiel:
"Wer bin ich wirklich?" kommt es immer wieder zu einer Identitätskrise.
In dem hier dargestellten Bild wird das Ego mit seinem "minderwertigen" Schatten konfrontiert.
Damit wird das Ego in Frage gestellt.
HKD
Weitere Überschriften zu diesem Bild:
Dualität meines Selbstbildes.
Die Begegnung mit meinem anderen Selbstbild
Konfrontation mit dem Schatten
HKD
This poor dahlia couldn't decide what colour it was supposed to be. The rest of the blooms on the plant so far have all been purple striped.
inspired by www.flickr.com/photos/scoobyfoo/sets/72057594083488682/ I tried to explane my image with lego
who am I? Where am I going? Life is so mysterious. Unexpected road, paths, twists and turns. Where am I heading? Why that way? What happens? I don't know anymore. This whole 'life' is corrupt. I just want what i want, and to do it that way.
Let's create me.
and yes, i did get ALL my hair cut :)
Holy double exposure!
A studio portrait of Amie Marie as the villainess Caesura...AND as ace reporter Betty Bracket. As you will all recall, Betty was the love interest of legendary superhero Question-Mark Man, before she was kidnapped by the dastardly evildoer...The Full Stop.
However, by the wonders of planning ahead and mildly skilled editing, here you can see both Betty and Caesura. :-)
This is from a studio shoot last night with the entire cast of "The Baffling Adventures of Question-Mark Man" by Bottled Spider. A really fun show about superheroes...and punctuation. What's not to like? :-)
"The only ones who suffer from the problem of identity are those who have no goal, no destiny, no eternal shore...How do we know our identity? By limits, by laws, by destinities, by God. Once the Good Friday-Easter Sunday syndrome is made the rule of life, then one see that only the Christ-fettered are free." -Fulton Sheen
ShadowForge87 (or Dave to his friends and family) walked into the Internet Cafe and looked around. His laptop had run out of power and he'd forgotten to bring his power cable, so this place was his only choice if he wanted to get online.
Sitting down at the nearest desk, he entered the login details he'd been given by the pale looking assistent and waited. This could take a while, he thought, considering the computer looked like
something out of the 90s, but within a few seconds he was logged in.
Before he began visiting his usual sites, like BrickLink and Eurobricks, he'd better check to make sure there was nothing running that would track his actions. He was all too aware of the dangers of identity theft and you couldn't be too careful in a place like this.
In the basement of the Internet Cafe, another computer screen flared into life:
... Terminal 2 Activated ...
... Cloning Facility Online ...
... Cloning Process Initiated ...
====================================================================
This vignette was created for the Eurobricks Collectable LEGO Minifigs Series 7 contest as a display setting for the Computer Programmer minifig.
Photo by CafeCredit under CC 2.0
You can use this photo for FREE under Creative Commons license. Make sure to give proper author attribution to www.cafecredit.com.
Thank you for respecting Creative Commons license.
P.S. Need more photos like this? Check out my flickr profile page.
In our digital world it’s much easier to steal the identify of someone else through hacked accounts or forged documents. When someone does this to you, they may have stolen one or more pieces of information from you such as a password to a website. You often have to work with your bank to clear your name which can take time.
Whilst the liveries on the GB 92s are not all that important as they're all the same underneath, 92 043 (formerly "Debussy") wears the GBRf "freight" colours. Despite this, it's been a regular on the Sleepers since its main overhaul in mid-2017, clocking up almost 200 turns on the Beds. Conversely, it has seen comparatively little freight action, particularly on the Dagehnam/Garston STVA circuit.
92043 has worked "the cars" only once in over two years, and that was a short three-week stint almost a year ago. 043 had worked north on 0Z49 Wembley - Crewe Down Holding Sidings and is seen in the UDL at Crewe prior to running back into the siding just south of the station. The blue and orange Dyson will run to Garston on Monday to work 6L48 to Dagenham, taking over the reins from 014.
I have become more and more interested in identity. The clothes we wear, the gestures we make, all the small things besides the recognition of a face that make us unique. This is one of a series of images that goes beyond the obvious. It examines those elements that consciously and unconsciously project our identity. At once mysterious and yet open to the world, her coat, scarf, hands and lips help to tell a story.
A series for the theme of identity, originally done for an English class in honour of "Farenheit 451" & one of its many themes.
I think everyone can relate to identity. Maybe a lack of an identity, a mistaken identity, or a confusion about your true identity.
A police officer checks the ID of two protesters arrested during the Occupy Wall Street march across the Brooklyn Bridge, October 1, 2011.
This was for my art project and it was to create some sort of identity without revealing the face and I took one person and made her express herself on her mood that day.
Model: Natalia
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.
A Transgender person during Aadi Velli festival in Tamilnadu, India.
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