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This working paper will unfold the methodological design of the PhD research project, Behind The Murals – A Participative Webdocu on the Motivations and the Reclamations of Street Art, with a focus on the incident when BLU repainted his murals at Berlin’s Cuvrybrache completely black. In contrast to BLU’s strategy – to erase his art so that it can no longer be made profitable by the investor of the lot or even by Berlin’s city marketing – I aim to investigate what other strategies against the reclamation of street art are imaginable. The main methodological question is, how is it possible to carry out this research in such a way that its results support the communities (potentially) affected by gentrification/touristification to gain a voice? The experimental methods of participatory video and digital storytelling will be applied with the target of producing a participative webdocu accompanied by a locally exhibited video installation.

This article primarily investigates the city of Berlin on two levels: as a totalizing vision in which a specific perspective of urban space is imagined and built into the city and as a layered and disparate space in which urban objects are catalysts for associative narratives for rethinking the urban environment. It concentrates on two primary areas of Berlin: the Kulturforum and Bebelplatz. Looking to a creative experience of the city, the author collaborates with the artist Knut Eckstein to explore the idea of subversive space based on a performative transgression of barriers in architecture.

The phenomenon of urban art is one of the forces shaping contemporary urban spaces. Historically fought as vandalism in its “writing” component (the “black sheep” of the urban actors performing in the contemporary city), urban art has recently become more appreciated as an artistic expression, especially when regarded as a stage in the historical evolution of muralism. As several examples worldwide have shown, in the context of urban renewal, urban art can set off positive dynamics. Focusing on the Italian scene, I recognize the importance of past Italian interventions realized both in big cities, such as Rome, Turin and Bologna, and in small cities, such as Grottaglie (Taranto), Gaeta (Latina), Catanzaro, and Dozza (Bologna). In addition, the growing number of urban art festivals and public interventions seems to voice the citizens’ will to take the streets back, particularly where institutions are unable to intervene effectively in the urban domain due to political short-sightedness or lack of financial resources. The first aim of this paper is to illustrate and analyze some collective projects and informal actions through which citizens, associations, and institutions have given added value to the urban space. I will focus particularly on Turin, which has become one of the most interesting and rich urban art territories, thanks to public projects such as Murarte, Picturin, Nizzart and B.Art: Arte in Barriera. This study offers insights on how, by way of artistic deeds and apparently “weak” transformation systems, urban art may take innovative action so as to regenerate the city’s architectural heritage. The second aim of this paper is to propose a methodology for architectural surveying techniques applied to urban art. isIn current critical analysis, as well as in the representation and documentation of this type of work, the fundamental importance of the physical, architectural and urban environment in which the work is placed is often overlooked, if not completely omitted. In acknowledgment of these limitations, this paper proposes a documentation methodology that respects both the values of the process and the work itself. In this regard, painted walls must be considered as inseparable from the space in which they are located, from the material substrate supporting them, and from the time conditions in which they were realized. The process of examination and documentation therefore requires observation in situ, new digital and traditional survey techniques, and a variety of representations at different scales; with a view to understanding the reasons that led to the selection of a particular place in the city, and the way in which artistic action arises in relation to the historical environment and the social and political system that influenced its creation.

This article addresses the interaction between urban regeneration and cultural policies. Planning and developing urban transformation may foster positive and experience design through the experience economy, targeting a cohesive cultural narrative and identity. The discussed case study discussed here concerns the reuse of the AXA Building in the historic center of the city of Porto, in Portugal, as an alternative to classical integrated urban cultural policy and the promotion of free access dynamic leisure activities. In this case, the reuse of a historical building resulted from a hybrid project. Characterized by fusion, the design combined urban rehabilitation, heritage conservation and maintenance, cultural institutions, environments and experiences, social interaction, recreation, and programs aimed at improving the quality of life of both residents and visitors.

The English street artist known as Banksy has in recent years become an important figure in the contemporary art world, garnering both critical acclaim and commercial success with his work. The “Banksy effect” is a term coined to describe the increased interest in street art that has emerged in the wake of Banksy’s popularity. Although the Banksy effect is not universally applauded, it offers a useful lens through which to consider the emergence of street art as a means of popular expression in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. This paper considers three places in which street art has been intentionally deployed as a vehicle of political protest or as a means to generate tourism in the face of political unrest: street art in the Palestinian territories; street art in Egypt, particularly Cairo; and the Djerbahood project in Tunisia. A brief discussion of the way in which street art is created and received in each particular area is provided, followed by some observations on how the Banksy effect may be at play in that particular context. The paper concludes that the idea of the Banksy effect has relevance in discussions of street art in the MENA region and that both the positive and negative aspects of the Banksy effect are seen in the region.

There is a need to create a documentation system adapted to facilitate the conservation and restoration of Street Art and Graffiti. Even though they are ephemeral manifestations of art, there have been some signs of the need for preservation mechanisms that would respect their own special features. For selected works we must establish a procedure that enables their preservation with the highest guarantee.

The Egyptian revolution of 2011 produced a massive transformation in the perception of urban space and the interrelated dynamic of people, their bodies, and the language within that space. Cultural expressions such as caricature galleries, makeshift exhibitions, chants, poetry readings, and memorial spaces defined the square as a place where activism and art intersected weaving a lyrical tapestry of the revolution. The most prominent of these expressions was the street art of the revolution where the act of painting on walls re-territorialized the city making it the revolution’s barometer by registering the shifting political discourses as they unfolded. Documenting and preserving these visual expressions was the driving force behind a three-year book project, entitled Walls of Freedom: Street Art of the Egyptian Revolution, which narrates the revolution through striking images of the art that transformed Egypt’s walls into a visual testimony of bravery and resistance. This article will serve to offer a detailed analysis of the methodologies and tools used in creating the book as well as managing, financing, and collecting all of its necessary components. Primarily focused on qualitative visual research methodologies, the book is layered into three components or levels: one level is a visual journey of the revolution through a chronological image-timeline. The categorization and indexing of images by artist, photographer, date and translation was an important function allowing quick access to images visually placing them in a larger continuum. The second level is a reference-based timeline of events where a connection between the art and the historical/political events is presented. The third level involves the essays and analysis supplementing the timeline with historical implications, political and social contexts and personal voices collected from artists and activists.

There is an abundance of books, magazines, films and internet-forums dedicated to graffiti. How this documentation has influenced and been a part of the graffiti subculture has not been studied much. Drawing on personal experiences, as a documentarian and publisher of graffiti media over 27 years, Malcolm Jacobson recollects how the positions of participant and observer incessantly have twisted around each other. This has been mediated through development in media technology as well as by the coming of age of graffiti and its practitioners.

When discussing the paradox of displacing the street art aesthetic, i.e. commissioning street artists to create work for art galleries, museums, or public murals, one inevitably has to address issues of co-opting, appropriation, and the institutionalization of a movement that began as a countercultural form of expression. Two commissioned pieces by OSGEMEOS are used as a case study. This paper parses through the discourse surrounding their production and removal. The goal therein is to break down these narratives and gain insight into the mechanisms at work and the inherent contradictions in the process of institutionalizing street art.

It is the goal of this paper to aesthetically rethink Street Art’s artistic process and question its narrative in urban and public space. We intend to highlight the anonymity, ephemeral, and transitory element as a key feature of its artistic creation. To this end, we will use as a starting point the relationship between the street artist and Baudelaire’s flanêur, to reach Foucault’s point of view, which somehow finds the key to the street artist’s aesthetic features, synthesized in the understanding of Baudelaire’s modernity, understood not as a mere historical period, but rather as an “attitude.”

What is the role of art in the reinforcement or rejection of current models of public space management in our cities? To answer this question, we must attend to the ties of all artwork with public institutions, and whether or not it questions the dominant order. In this article, I will focus on the works of the Ana Botella Crew, a group of artists from Madrid, as an example of “artivism” that challenges the City Council’s management of public spaces in Madrid. My aim is to explore how useful internet tools can be to articulate artistic interventions that challenge the hegemonic uses of public space, in what Sassen has called the global city.

This article addresses the notion of the socially engaged visual arts. The first part explores some fundamental historical periods to help understand this practice, from the Greek concept of teknè until the present time. Then, the idea of a machine for the emancipation of creativity is explained, as well as its operation in two neighborhoods of the Portuguese city of Amadora. Finally, as a result of this immaterial machine, the focus turns to a detailed description of an archive of audiovisual elements that represents each activity undertaken within the project.

Nowadays, walking around any city is a guarantee of seeing graffiti, while the public transportation are still a good canvas for writers. It is a well-established social phenomenon and has catch the attention of ethnographers, academic artists and other scholars that have entered the worlds of graffiti writers to explain their origins, trajectories, motivations, their identity construction, their conception of the self and their role and relation with society at large. However, still there is no synthetic effort of categorisation that provides understandable and communicable approaches to graffiti in the real world. From some sectors graffiti is still something to “deal with”. Generally speaking, authorities and dutyholders consider graffiti as threat a security and safety issue, turning it into something that needs to be addressed. For social workers, for instance, graffiti can be a means of communication with certain youth sectors or even a tool for social cohesion generation. Departing from this perspective, Graffolution was designed: an EC funded project for generating awareness and advance in the provision of best practices for tackling graffiti in Austria, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom. The first rule encountered is no-one-size-fits-all and referring to graffiti and graffiti writers, this requires a complex understanding of the phenomenon, their trajectories as well as individual and collective dispositions. The aim of this paper is to provide a consistent typology of graffiti writers, offering a comprehensive picture of whose are the hands behind the graffiti cans. This serves a double level purpose: advancing at the theoretical level putting forward the sociocultural approaches to careers and social backgrounds provided by ethnographic approaches, as well as capturing the complexity of the phenomenon to serve as an operative conceptual basis for practitioners, professionals and decision makers. In doing so, the analysis is made on the transcripts obtained for 22 semi-structured interviews, carried out in the four participating countries. The transcripts have been analysed according to the “persona” methodology, which constitutes a systematic and novel approach and a qualitative technique for clustering information. As a result, three main categories have been defined according to important ambitions, challenges and stages of typical ‘journeys’ or ‘pathways’ of actors. These findings contribute to form a basis of a) highlight the misconceptions around graffiti as a petty crime, and b) offer a guide to understand graffiti writers under a socio-cultural perspective.

ARTE Creative auf Spurensuche in Dismaland! Mit Dismaland hat Banksy den trostlosesten Vergnügungspark der Welt geschaffen. Eine dokumentarische Rückschau. http://creative.arte.tv/de/dismaland-... Mehr Infos unter: http://creative.arte.tv/de fb.com/creative.arte twitter.com/ARTEcreative

Graffuturism ist mittlerweile ein bekannter Begriff in der weltweiten Graffiti und Street-Art-Szene. Die Gruppe um den US-amerikanischen Graffitikünstler POESIA wurde im Februar 2010 in San Francisco gegründet und definiert sich über abstrakte Malereien mit der Spraydose, Mural Art oder Installationen wie beispielsweise die von Clemens Behr. "We use the word group as we don’t wish to define Graffuturism as a movement as we are a part of it. I think if it is defined as a movement it should come from outside sources. We leave it to others to label the semantics of what we are doing“ (POESIA) Der Name Graffuturism steht für die Weiterentwicklung von Aerosol und Graffiti Art, weg von Stylewriting und klassischen Graffiti der 70er und 80er Jahre der USA. Diese Gruppe von Graffitikünstlern geht einen eigenen Weg und hat noch viel vor. Bisher wurde das GRAFFUTURISM Projekt nur selten kompakt und in allen Facetten vorgestellt. Bisher im Rahmen von einigen wenigen Gruppenausstellungen. Im April 2013 hat die OPEN SPACE Galerie Paris 21 Künstler aus der Gruppe eingeladen um neue Arbeiten vorzustellen. "Its a surreal feeling sometimes when so many great artists you follow from afar are all together in one room appreciating each others work in real time. This is the real power of the group and what has been built. Graffuturism is an international phenomenon, one that has no home base or country. Because of this, these exhibitions are important. They allow us to meet each other shake hands, have a beer, and paint together. Each time we meet someone new, artists get to collaborate at times on walls. Things organically take shape. Paris was no exception, a trip filled with more unforgettable memories and another step on the road to our future." Wir haben die Gruppe in Paris besucht, mit Gilbert, Pener und dem Gründer Poesia kurz sprechen können. Samantha von der OPEN SPACE Galerie Paris stellt GRAFFUTURISM in unserer neuen 5 MINUTES Episode einleitend vor. Eine interessante Sicht auf die Dinge und mal wieder viel zu wenig Zeit um dieses schöne Projekt umfassend vorzustellen. Daher empfehlen wir einen Besuch der Website graffuturism.com. Dort finden sich Informationen und Bildmaterial zu allen Künstlern der Gruppe soowie aktuelle Informationen zu laufenden Projekten und Ausstellungen! Le Graffuturism est un mouvement protéiforme qui marque la transition vers un nouveau type d’art. Tout en faisant partie intégrante du graffiti, le Graffuturism évolue vers des œuvres plus abstraites et plus contemporaines : c’est la révolution du graffiti. Le Graffuturism est devenu une notion connue dans le milieu du graffiti et de la scène Street Art internationale. Le terme a été inventé par l'artiste Poesia, en février 2010 à San Francisco afin de définir le travail d'un groupement d'artistes s'étant émancipé du graffiti traditionnel- lettrage, personnage. Le Graffuturism se caractérise par des formes abstraites, géométriques ou figuratives faites à l’aérosol, en peintures murales, ou dans des installations comme celles de Clemens Behr. Pour la première fois, les différentes facettes du mouvement sont présentées dans une exposition collective, à travers la mise en lumière de 20 artistes français et internationaux, à la galerie Openspace à Paris.

Recently there has been a resurgence of murals in several European and American cities. Street art visual practices have privileged murals as one of the most suitable formats to address public spaces. Despite the increasing recognition and significance of murals for the visual culture of these cities, this contemporary urban art practice has not received much attention from recent literature. This paper provides a literature review on contemporary murals, giving an account of their popularity, their relation to location-specificity and global presence, as well as the means of dissemination of such art expression. The study will then focus on a set of case studies in Lisbon, regarding the paradigmatic shift from sculpture commissioning to mural commissioning within Portuguese Brazilian cultural relationships. The works of OSGEMEOS, Bicicleta sem Freio and Nunca will be discussed in this framework, questioning what the contributions of contemporary mural works might be for the public spaces of the city.

This article sets out to show how a sociological research project on the production of street art in Lisbon was built, from the construction of an object of research to the development of a methodological approach that enabled the collection of a diverse set of expressive data. The notion of 'route' serves not only as a valuable instrument of research in the first stages of an investigation in urban sociology, but also as a powerful visual depiction of the development of a specific methodology and the set of techniques adopted. The diverse set of interrogations about the object that stem from these incursions, as well as the specific urban context at hand, allowed the researcher to conceptualize street art as a component of contemporary urban space and as a visual means to reveal social dynamics between the several actors involved in its production, and the city itself. Therefore, in this paper it is briefly shown how this object is theoretically framed, namely in what concerns the street artists and the way they build an artistic path and attribute meaning to the act of intervening artistically in the streets of the city, and how this connects with the worlds of contemporary art and the several contexts of production of street art; the contexts in which street art is currently created in Lisbon, from individual initiatives to the actions of associations or collectives, and the municipality; and the way in which the city, through its institutional powers, can instrumentalize street art as a way of creating 'images of the city', and how this can be explored in terms of tourism and the marketing of cities, and the conflict or opportunities that these processes reveal for the actors involved.

En el presente estudio se pretende reflexionar sobre algunas de las principales características de expresiones poéticas actuales en el espacio público que procuran intervenir en la realidad social y política. Se pretende realizar una breve aproximación teórica a las nociones interrelacionadas de lo poético (no lírico) y de la poeticidad en el espacio público, sobre todo a partir de formas poéticas efímeras como lo son el grafiti o la performance. El marco teórico-metodológico se apoya en tres ámbitos, considerados fundamentales para abordar el tema: la poesía no lírica colocada en un contexto ontológico (Heidegger), la hermenéutica de la poesía como traducción (a partir de Heidegger, Benjamin y Leyte) y la relación entre el espacio público y la traducción (a partir de Habermas, Bhabha, Spivak y Butler). Se argumentará que el espacio público hoy en día perdió su estatus de autonomía política, que es menos un lugar del (inter)cambio político que de la subversión cultural. Se relaciona la idea del tercer espacio (Bhabha) con la idea de la poesía actual como un tránsito-traducción, como una vía de transformación de las circunstancias. En este espacio público, algunas expresiones poéticas funcionan como una traducción entre la subversión cultural postmoderna o postcolonial y la tradicional política de poder y se considera que en la actualidad lo poético está todavía estrechamente relacionado con el clásico acto de emancipación del sujeto a través de la auto-reflexión (Habermas). Esta circunstancia se relaciona con el sentido que Judith Butler asignó al concepto de la universalidad: el de una traducción a través de las fronteras, de una traducción cultural que representaría el retorno de lo excluido. Los ejemplos poéticos propuestos para ilustrar esta exposición teórica proceden de ámbitos culturales diversos y se centrarán en el carácter urbano, transmedial y político del grafiti, de la instalación (Banksy, ±MaisMenos±,Camilla Watson, Batania Neorrabioso) y de los objetos poéticos (Augusto de Campos y Helmut Seethaler).

Este volumen nace con el propósito de producir conocimiento crítico sobre las prácticas poéticas en el espacio público, sus funciones y su eficacia dentro de éste. A la inestabilidad funcional de la poesía y lo lírico en la actualidad se une la noción de espacio público, entendida tanto desde su vertiente conceptual, filosófica y social, como desde su vertiente material, física, ligada a la (re)presentación escénica. Espacios, sujetos e instituciones se redefinen de la mano de esta combinación. Así, la inclusión de la espacialidad en una teoría poética actualizada, la constitución de nuevos sujetos y subjetividades y la identificación de públicos y prácticas en torno a los conceptos de performatividad e intervención constituyen los vectores fundamentales de este libro. Sin acotación de ningún tipo en términos lingüísticos, nacionales o interartísticos, los trabajos aquí recogidos se reparten entre lo teórico-crítico y metodológico, los estudios de caso y las reflexiones en primera persona, teniendo como objetivo último la valoración de la incidencia de la poesía en el espacio público y sus efectos socio-políticos.

En una reflexión general sobre los procesos y prácticas culturales emergentes, Wlad Godzich subrayó la imposibilidad de estudiarlos de acuerdo con las categorías hegemónicas y convencionales, para las que en realidad suponen un desafío. La delimitación de la noción de poesía en nuestro tiempo, habida cuenta de su estatus multifuncional e inestable, es una tarea compleja. Refiriéndonos a la hibridación genérica y discursiva podríamos condensar la mayor parte de sus reformulaciones, causadas también por la aceptación de lo popular, lo masivo o lo tecnológico, y por la potencialidad crítica de la subjetividad y el sujeto. En línea con lo señalado por Godzich, tales cambios exigen nuevas perspectivas y metodologías de análisis, que vayan más allá de las derivadas de genologías de base apenas textual. Las poéticas que son objeto de estudio en este libro no serán acotadas en términos lingüísticos, nacionales o interartísticos; de forma correlativa, se presta atención a sistemas de significación no (solo) verbales, al acoger análisis sobre prácticas performativas, grafiti e intervención, poesía fractal o formatos televisivos, privilegiando siempre la investigación de su incidencia como interacción y mediación pública, además de sus efectos socio-políticos.