The Message of Street Art - Street Art as Commodity and Communications Tool

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There are many painting and writings around us in the streets. And we all know that it is called street art. But what is it? Where did it come from? What is the message of street art? Why is it legal in some places and illegal in other places? This work is going to answer these questions and try to answer many others.

Gazi University Public Relations and Promotion Department of Communication

For fulfillment of subject Global Market Communications Ankara 2013

The Message of Street Art

THE MESSAGE OF STREET ART

Street Art as Commodity and Communications Tool

Author:

Teimuraz Baratashvili

________________________________________

Department of Public Relation and Promotion

Faculty of Communication

Gazi University

________________________________________

Paper presented as a partial fulfillment of subject

Global Market Communications

________________________________________

Ankara 2013


ABSTRACT

Although graffiti, street art, stencils, urban culture, etc. are understood as an art form by some,

these words still are synonyms of vandalism for others. In many countries street art is considered to

be illegal; however there are several thesis works about understanding the street art, interpreting it

as a form of narrative.

In this work following questions are going to be answered: What is the message of street art?

Why is it legal in some places and illegal in other places? Unfortunately questioning street artist is

very difficult since majority of them are anonymous, although they are known by their nicknames. In

this work several previous works will be examined such as: “Street Art as Narrative” by Veronica

Saydak, “Street Art and Outdoor Advertisement” by Melike Kiratle and Murvet Irem Sirin.

In this work artworks of street artist Banksy and several others will be examined.

Keywords: Street Art, Graffiti, Culture, Capitalism, Consumer Society, New Channels of

Communication.


LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. – “IRAQ/N” Stencil work in Kaunas, Lithuania. Unknown artist.

Figure 2. – The Soldier and the girl. Artist: Banksy

Figure 3. – Destroy Capitalism. Artist: Banksy

Figure 4. – PARKing, Artist: Banksy

Figure 5. – Raintbow. Germany, Unkown artist

Figure 6. – Ev gibisi yok!: There is nowhere like home!; Guerilla marketing approach used by

Turk Telekom on Bağdat Avenue, Istanbul, Turkey 2010

Figure 7. – Outdoor advertisement on Vodofone office in Istanbul, Turkey 2010


TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract……………………………………………………………………………… I

List of Figures ……………………………………………………………………… II

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………. 1

Street Art and Society …………………………………………………………….. 2

Street Art and Government ……………………………………………………… 7

Street Art and Outdoor Advertising……………………………………………… 9

References …………………………………………………………………………. 11


INTRODUCTION

Nowadays there too many channels of communication and almost all of them include text and

visualization. In order to communicated through this channels people pay money. People pay

money to express own ideas, to read others ideas, read books, educate themselves, furthermore

people pay money in order to get their mind manipulated by propaganda. It is all legal as long as

money is paid for it.

Everyday people are assaulted by advertisement images in the streets, metro and even toilets. It

is difficult not to see them, even though one tries not to look at them. Majority of outdoor billboards

are selling a certain lifestyle creating new consumer ideology in society. The majority of street art

works are created to occupy the eyesight with something more interesting and cultural rather than

commercials. Although many street art graffiti writings are simple anti-capitalist slogans, most of

stencil-made street art works are beautiful, eye-catching pieces that indeed could be deliberated as

an art form. It is really paradox that being “brainwashed” by propaganda cost money and it is

considered legal, while getting “enlightened” by street art is free, but it is considered to be illegal

and is being terminated by most of the local authorities.

This work will examine relations between street art and society, government and advertisements.

Although part of street art is just a joke, authorities make everything to erase it, but advertising

agencies are coping with it in different way by using it as guerilla marketing tool. After observing

the ideas and messages of street art one can probably understand the reason of government-street

art relations.


STREET ART AND SOCIETY

In 21st century consumer society became more widespread and common with the help of social

media and internet. The image of Starbuck’s mermaid is more common than Van Gogh’s

sunflowers. While in some societies having Dali’s and Monet’s paintings hanging in the room has a

big value in other societies it has much value to have Starbucks coffee mug, Converse shoes and

Apple’s logo on electronic devices. As art is becoming not very popular and sellable in some case,

artist started to transfer their works to the street walls. Even though some people prefer to have

branded coffee mugs they will still be able to see a piece of art on the street.

Before discussing the conversation between street art and society a little should be said about the

history and origins of street art. ”The idea of subcultures being a representation of a moment in history,

therefore we can see that as street art were born out of a feeling of being left out by society, they will

continue to survive as subcultures for however long any one person feels neglected or excluded”

(Rose&Strike, 2005, p.200).

Today’s street art is very different from former graffiti writings. Graffiti writings generally

represented the name of the artist or name of gang that graffiti writer belonged to. After a certain

time period graffiti writings developed, they became more attractive, interesting and creative. Why

write just a name if you can add shadows and make it three dimensional writing. But nowadays

street art writings are more literate and self-conscious.

“Society is in a monologue with itself, not allowing in outside voices or new thoughts.

Street artists playfully interact with the government that works to buff out their

narratives.” (Veronica Saydak, 2011).


Street art wall writings are considerably the same as Facebook wall posts, only here an artist

shares his thought not only with his so called facebook-friends but with whole society and the

government. This last is trying to erase these messages from artist-society conversation.

While society is under the state of one-sided informational conversation with advertisements,

street art creates a dialogue with capitalist system and government censure of message delivery

systems. It is not only about mass media, it is also about outdoors communications such as

billboards, leaflets, printed announcements, etc. Most of street art messages are about questioning

the mainstream ideology will it be consumerism, autocracy, “fake” democracy, politics, etc.

Figure 1 | IRAQ/N

If we take to analyze Figure1, the message could be easily understood. The artist obviously is

questioning the US’s international politics toward Iran, showing that letter “Q” in IRAQ is to be

changed to “N”. The message is simple: Will US do the same with Iran as they did with Iraq? And it

happens not only in USA. This exact example is located in Lithuania, far away from USA and even

on another continent.

As Lewihson mentions street artists in “Street art. The graffiti revolution”: ”They *street artists+ are

able to comment on social issues or even make nonsensical joke-like statements, without any fear of

reproach.” (Lewisohn, 2008, p.100).


Figure 2 | Banksy - Soldier and Girl

Figure 2. is artwork of famous street artist known as Banksy. There is a girl searching a soldier in

the picture. Probably the message of this particular artwork is that society must control government

and not vice versa. Soldier represents the suppressive force of government and a girl – innocent

civilian.

Figure 3 | Banksy - Destroy Capitalism

Figure 3 is an artwork of Banksy. His works are usually representing the ideological rebel against

the capitalism. Current picture shows a salesman who sells t-shirts with writing “Destroy

Capitalism”. People in the line are waiting for their turn to buy the t-shirt, and this people look like

punks, hippies and anarchists. The message of this artwork is that the rebel against the capitalism

is using capitalist ways. In order to show off the rebellion one must buy a 30 dollar serial production

t-shirt.


Figure 4 | Banksy - PARKing

Street art is the way artist adapt art to the postmodern capitalist world. Blank grey wall may

become a piece of art and even masterpiece in couple of days. In fact not much I necessary for

that, couple of stencils, spray paint brush and creativity.

Street artist Banksy, as mentioned before, usually criticizes capitalist structure. In Figure 5 artist

shows this very exact adaptation by removing “ing” from the word and living only “park” where a

little girl is happyly swinging.

Figure 5 | Rainbow

Not every street art are anti-political. There are examples of street art that are just making a

person passing by smile. This kind of street art are attractive, colorful and awaking a happy feelings

in society. They do not promote any political idea; their message is happy lifestyle apart from

propaganda and consumerism.


This piece (Figure 4) of street art is made in Germany. It does not represent any rebel against

authorities or ideology. However it has anti-black-suit-lifestyle message. While majority of city

residents wear unhappy black suits and ride to work, taking time only to watch at billboards in order

to acquire information about new price of mobile phone devices, this street artwork is presenting an

alternative happy lifestyle apart of advertisements and marketing.

Speaking of street art as media, we must remember McLuhan’s famous quote “The Medium is

the Message”. In his work “Understanding Media” McLuhan writes: “An abstract painting represents

direct manifestation of creative thought processes as they might appear in computer designs. What we

are considering here, however, are the psychic and social consequences of the designs or patterns as they

amplify or accelerate existing processes. For the "message" of any medium or technology is the change of

scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs” (McLuhan 1964).

Since medium itself is the message we should not analyze street art as random wall paintings.

Street walls are medium themselves, thereby street art appears to be media itself. To understand

the whole picture of the concept the following question should be answered: why do street artist

use walls as the medium? The answer is obvious – it is illegal and located in the heart of cities

where most of society members walk day to day. It is simple that what is illegal is anti-

governmental. Street art as well as every other media has psychic and social consequences upon

the mainstream ideology or lifestyle.


STREET ART AND GOVERNMENT

In March 1982 in The Atlantic Monthly social scientist James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling in

article “Broken Windows” introduced a theory today known as the Broken Window Theory. The

theory states that little disobedience of law and rules soon will lead to massive illegality in the

society.

“Social psychologists and police officers tend to agree that if a window in a building

is broken and is left unrepaired, all the rest of the windows will soon be broken.”

“But vandalism can occur anywhere once communal barriers -- the sense of mutual

regard and the obligations of civility - are lowered by actions that seem to signal

that ‘no one cares.’” (Kelling, Wilson, 1982).

In the article it is written that the proliferation of graffiti, confronts the subway rider with the

"inescapable knowledge that the environment he must endure for an hour or more a day is uncontrolled and

uncontrollable, and that anyone can invade it to do whatever damage and mischief the mind suggests."

According to the theory, as Katherine Gunnel discusses, the appearance of litter, broken windows

and graffiti creates a sense of irreversible decline which prompts people to either abandon the

community in which the unwanted conduct exists.

This article and theory received national and then global attention. Municipalities and local

authorities took the theory under the consideration and started paying attention the things that were

ignored before. One of these things is graffiti writings. Although graffiti writing and street art have

the similar causes and history, they differ. Street art sometimes is referred to as post-graffiti, it

carries a modern set of aesthetics, media, and techniques that were not present among graffiti art

movement in New York in the 1970-80s.


Graffiti writing started out as a most common way to mark a territory. So graffiti writing referred in

the Broken Windows article represent typographical writings of gang names in the street corners.

Nowadays majority of people do not know the difference between street art and graffiti writings,

they counter-refer this two concepts and use word “vandalism” as a synonym of it. Since local

authorities attend the mainstream disinformation of difference between these two concepts, they

tend to abolish the street art.

The idea of Broken Windows makes authorities troubled and prompts action to reassert authority

and power. Local authorities control and respond to graffiti and street art based on this theory and

in response remove and criminalize the expressions found in the public space.

Street art, unlike the majority of graffiti art, varies in the media used. In addition to

spray-paint, permanent pens, or markers typically used by graffiti artists, street

artists have free range to include whatever media best serves their artistic style.

Street artists have typically behaved as mixed media artists avidly using one or more

forms of media such as charcoal, paint, collage, spray-paint, pens, markers,

airbrushing, and wheat pasting. (Katherine Gunnel 2006)


STREET ART AND OUTDOOR ADVERTISING

In the past decade street art changed its face from gang graffiti writings to stencil art pieces and

guerilla marketing tool. While in some countries street art still exists under the label of “vandalism”

in other countries street art is becoming a tool for advertisement and marketing. Advertisers and

“cool hunters” always search for something new and creative to increase sales and popularize the

product. If the street art is so attractive and spectacular why it should not be uses in advertisement?

Usual outdoor advertisements are memorable if they are related to particular interest of

consumer, otherwise regular citizen would not even recognize the advertisement. As it comes to

street art used in advertising it is recognized by majority of pedestrians whether they are interested

in product or not.

Figure 6 | Ev gibisi yok!: there is nowhere like home

One of the examples of guerilla marketing Turkey is installation made for Turk Telekom on the

bus stops in Istanbul. The bus stops were decorated as a flat interior. Although majority of people

do not remember what was advertised by such creative way, they remember that it Turk Telekom

who makes daily life a little bit happier and interesting.


Figure 7 | Vodafone office in Istanbul

As street art becomes more widespread across the world people pay more attention to the wall

writings rather than commercial billboards. Therefore advertisers tend to use graffiti writings to

attract customers and promote particular information. In 2010 Vodafone used graffiti spray writing

on one of its offices in Istiklal Street in Istanbul. The writing on Figure 7 says “Free talking is our

right”. Vodafone aimed the target group of age under twenty-five. And it is no coincidence that it

was made on Istiklal Street, one of the main modern, entertainment, youth street in Istanbul. Graffiti

writing in combination with the world “free” or in other translations “liberty/freedom” bring to mind

rebel feeling of youth and shows that the company is in the same “club” as youngsters.

In last five years many companies and NGOs have used street art as one the tools to spread the

information or promote the product. Nestle, Greenpeace, McDonalds, IKEA are the main

companies that started using street art as an advertising and guerilla marketing tool.


REFERENCES

1. Gunnel, Katherine A. “Street Art: Its Display in Public Spaces and Issues within a

Municipality” (2006). Master of Science in Urban Studies Thesis, The University of New Orleans

2. Hughes, Melissa L., "Street Art & Graffiti Art: Developing an Understanding" (2009). Art and

Design Thesis. Paper 50, Georgia State University

3. James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling. "BROKEN WINDOWS: The police and

neighborhood safety". (1982) The Atlantic Monthly

4. Kıratlı, Melike; Şirin, Mürvet İ., “Street Art and Outdoor Advertisements” (2010), Lund

University

5. Lewisohn, C. (2008). “Street art. The graffiti revolution”. Abrams Books.

6. Rose, A & Strike C. (eds.) (2005). “Beautiful losers: contemporary art and street culture”.

Iconoclast Productions in Association with D.A.P. (Distributed Art Publishers).

7. Saydak, Veronica S. “Street Art as Narrative” (2011), Master of Arts Thesis, San Diego

State University

8. McLuhan, Marshal. “Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man” (New York: Signet,

1964): 23-35, 63-7

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