Posts Tagged ‘Sydney’

Prevention to preservation… and prosecution?

Friday, October 26th, 2012

by Erin Wilson


An analysis of the City of Sydney’s MURALS, STREET ART AND GRAFFITI AS HERITAGE ITEMS proposal.

The streets of Sydney are covered with street art, or graffiti, that was created in defiance of official regulations of good taste. While in the past it seemed the City of Sydney Council abhorred these works, the recent release of a graffiti register proposal has revealed a new, progressive view of these works… or has it?

While the proposed register addresses many key issues regarding the identification, documentation and preservation of ‘socially valuable’ street art, there are also many it neglects. However, many issues that seem to be washed over or neglected entirely in the new policy, are likely mentioned in the City’s ‘other’ graffiti policy- the current Graffiti Management policy. While this policy may now be superseded by the new approach, it makes mention of a key element that the graffiti register proposal has neglected: the creator of the work.

As a result, to gain a full understanding of the City of Sydney’s new approach to graffiti and/or street art, it is necessary to consider both documents alongside one another. In doing so it becomes clear, before the end of the first paragraph, that contradictions will arise. For instance, according to graffiti register policy, street art and some graffiti ‘make a valuable contribution to the City’s identity and social cohesion. Such artworks are associated with innovation and creativity, as well as adding to the richness and diversity of the City’s cultural life’. However, according to the graffiti management policy, ‘Unsightly graffiti adds to an atmosphere of neglect and urban decay, and distorts perceptions about the actual level of crime and safety’. While few people will argue that all graffiti does either of these things, what is most problematic with these conflicting views is a lack of clarity concerning exactly who will decide which graffiti is ‘valuable’ and which is ‘unsightly’.

Having acknowledged the social and economic benefits of (some) street art, the proposed policy then outlines a series of procedures for identifying, documenting and maintaining works deemed to be socially significant. Work that falls into the ‘valuable’ or ‘socially significant’ category is to be determined collaboratively, through community and council consultation. However, it is unclear whether new works that may be deemed to have social value by the city and local community will have the chance to be considered. As the City of Sydney has a quick removal policy, patrolling identified ‘priority zones’ as frequently as once every 24 hours, and ‘routine zones’ every five days, it is not unreasonable to question whether works that have potential value to the community will survive long enough to resonate, or even be seen. Further, in regard to community consultation, the public exhibition of the planning proposal is a key point in determining at what level decisions of significance will be made. Accepting and encouraging community consultation as a key step in the process suggests the community will have an active voice in determining what is significant. While the notion of community consultation is seemingly progressive, the graffiti register proposal still neglects to mention another key group concerned – the creators of the socially valuable works.

While the graffiti register policy makes no mention of these creators, the graffiti management policy does. As well as asserting the prosecution of offenders as a deterrent strategy, this policy states ‘Illegal graffitists will be deprived of the reward/satisfaction of recognition’, this apparently applies regardless of the recognised social significance of the work. While the graffiti management policy that employs this strategy deals primarily with the ‘bad’ type of graffiti, the absence of discussion of graffitists in the graffiti register policy suggests this strategy may be applied to creators of ‘good’ graffiti too. This raises the question, is a graffitist whose work is deemed worthy of heritage listing to be denied recognition as a punishment for illegally adding to the social value of the city?

The current graffiti management policy states ‘the success of the City’s graffiti removal program is due to its sensitivity to the distinction between creative expression from the community and unacceptable visual pollution by graffiti’. Essentially, the City of Sydney recognises that the term ‘graffiti’ covers both the socially valuable creative expressions valued by the community, or ‘good’ graffiti, and the unwanted, visually displeasing vandalism abhorred by the community, or ‘bad’ graffiti. While a culmination of the two policies provides strategies for dealing with both types of graffiti, there is only vague allusion at most to how graffiti will be defined as one or the other, and who will make this decision.

While the treatment of what is valuable graffiti is vague in both policies, the major contradiction between the two policies is the attitude applied to illegal graffiti. While the graffiti management policy engages with a deterrence policy, the graffiti register policy states, ‘These art forms, expressed within the shared arena of the public domain, are often controversial when being established, but add to the vibrancy of the city’. The controversy referred to, in actuality, involves the potential prosecution of the creator, the attempted removal of the work as soon as is possible, and the policy of allowing no public attribution to the creator of the work.

Under the Summary Offences Act 1998, the penalty in NSW for ‘willful damage or defacement of property by means of spray paint without reasonable excuse’ is a fine of $2200 or 6 months in prison for ‘serious or persistent offenders’. Across Australia, the penalty for creating, or the intention to create, graffiti ranges form having no specified law to a term of seven years imprisonment for repeat offenders. In prosecuting graffitists, consistent acts of graffiti rather than intention, scale or location of the work is listed as the factor most likely to result in a prison term being served. While the graffiti register policy suggests a new, progressive approach to graffiti, these laws have received no mention, and as a result, it can be assumed they will continue to operate in the same way as they have been, despite the new appreciation Sydney has for (some) graffiti works. Simply put, the City of Sydney discourages and penalises illegal graffiti practices, with the exception of the (still undefined) ‘good’ graffiti. While the graffiti register policy recognises some graffiti, though created illegally, may too become worthy of heritage status, no attempt has been made to alter the approach taken to illegal graffiti from the time of its conception. If a graffitist risks association with their work resulting in prosecution when the work is deemed to be ‘visual pollution’, surely they should receive public recognition for their contribution to society if the work is deemed valuable to the point of heritage listing.

While the new graffiti register policy has raised a variety of issues and contradictions, they are not unique to Sydney. In her article  ‘Negotiated consent or zero tolerance?’ Alison Young, a criminologist and socio-legal researcher, outlines her designated task in 2004: to develop a new, progressive graffiti policy for Melbourne. Despite Young’s policy receiving widespread support, it was never adopted by the City of Melbourne, who instead opted for a ‘zero tolerance’ policy. An examination of Young’s policy provides insight into a balanced, considered and progressive approach to graffiti in major cities. Young first refers to the concept of ‘negotiated consent’, a key element of this being the implementation of ‘zones of tolerance’, essentially designated spaces for legal graffiti, as are seen in several areas of Sydney already. Young proposed that three zones be developed: zones of zero tolerance, zones of limited tolerance (in which property owners make decisions on what is removed or preserved, with council intervention only occurring if necessary in the case of disagreement between individuals), and finally designated zones. Like several similar zones in Sydney, work in designated zones would not face council removal and would be self-regulated and maintained by the contributing creators.

A major element addressed in Young’s proposed policy was one neglected in Sydney’s new policy – recognition of the role of the creators of the works in question. Young’s proposal suggested a re-definition of the term ‘stakeholder’ in order to approach the issue of graffiti in a more inclusive, considered way. Young notes that the term stakeholder is primarily, if not exclusively, applied to those in opposition to graffiti, and as a result seeks to include graffitists and supporters of graffiti within this term. She suggests that redefining the term stakeholder to include all individuals concerned with the works will help protect and promote the rights of the creators, and those who reside in areas discussed, that appreciate the social or aesthetic value of the works in question.

Despite Young’s call to consider graffitists and pro-graffitists, the adopted zero tolerance policy, as in Sydney’s policy, acknowledged the value of certain graffiti works while managing to make no mention of their creators or their fate. This is particularly interesting, as in her research Young found graffiti artists in Melbourne were willing to work alongside the council in formulating policies that present a balanced approach to graffiti issues, however as in the Sydney policy, these collaborations become obsolete. While the Sydney graffiti register is seemingly a progressive approach, engaging to an extent with the idea of negotiated consent, the lack of amendment to current graffiti laws that engage with a ‘zero-tolerance’ approach suggests the graffiti register policy is at best a vague attempt at progressive views, with a major neglect of relevant concerned stakeholders.

Ultimately, Young’s attempt at a fair, balanced and inclusive graffiti policy highlights what is possible when all parties are considered and consulted. However, what becomes clear is the still conflicting, undefined view of graffiti. While Sydney Council has followed Melbourne in its attempt to take a progressive approach to graffiti, an overriding conflict seems to exist regarding when graffiti is good and when it is bad, when it is art and when it is vandalism, as well as neglecting to consider the creators in the first capacity, only in the second as criminals.

What an analysis of the graffiti register proposal and the graffiti management policy reveals is that neither should be consulted in isolation. Each contains information that contradicts the other and each fills in the blanks where the other is vague. What is further established are the problems that arise when a fairly vague policy is developed on the basis of subjective, undefined opinions. While the City of Sydney has taken a step in the right direction by recognising the potential of graffiti art, it cannot be as simple as categorising some graffiti as ‘good’ and some as ‘bad’.  Even a brief examination of current academic literature in the field of street art reveals a plethora of issues seemingly neglected in the current policies. Issues including recognition and anonymity, audience participation or a ‘street dialogue’, commodification of graffiti art, graffitists’ role in the construction of place identity and fluid notions of public space are only a few of the issues that are essentially ignored by these new policies.

While it is true that we have to start somewhere, and the graffiti register is a step in the right direction for street art in Sydney, it is fair to say it is only a step. To move leaps and bounds the City of Sydney must consider the need for a progression of laws to coincide with progressive conceptions of the role of graffiti. The classification of graffiti as either art (good) or vandalism (bad) must be recognised as subjective and there must be more formal guidelines in place for the classification of graffiti. Finally, it is a necessity that the creators of the socially valuable works discussed in the graffiti register policy are provided recognition. While the graffiti management policy acknowledges creators, although through discussion of their prosecution, the graffiti register policy seems to treat street art as though it simply appears. If an individual can be identified and prosecuted for their ‘visual pollution’ surely they should be identified and praised for their addition to the  ‘richness and diversity of the City’s cultural life’.

Erin Wilson

Further Reading:

1. CITY OF SYDNEY ENVIRONMENT AND HERITAGE COMMITTEE, MURALS, STREET ART AND GRAFFITI AS HERITAGE ITEMS.

2. CITY OF SYDNEY GRAFFITI MANAGEMENT POLICY

3. Alison Young (2010): Negotiated consent or zero tolerance? Responding to graffiti and street art in Melbourne, City: analysis of urban trends, culture, theory, policy, action, 14:1-2, 99-114

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Posted in Artwrite 50, Major Articles | Comments Off

May contain graphic material

Tuesday, October 18th, 2011

By Noel Myaing

CRASH! BAM! POW! BANG!

Comic books and graphic novels have exploded into the consciousness of Western contemporary culture over the last decade. It isn’t difficult to find a billboard advertising the next big Marvel or DC comic action blockbuster. The superhero genre has dominated the comic book medium since Superman’s first appearance in Action Comics #1, in 1938. But the understated genres of graphic storytelling long overshadowed by larger-than-life superhuman beings are brought to light in a much quieter manner in Silent Comics at this year’s annual Graphic Festival.

Curated by Jordan Verzar and Virginia Hyam and only in its second year, the festival celebrates graphic storytelling, animation and music over the weekend of August 20th and 21st.  Set in Sydney’s iconic Opera House, Graphic features various events that encompass a wide range of media, from discussion panels with legendary illustrators to original animations from emerging Australian directors.  These animations are screened during Australian multi-instrumentalist Gotye’s live Animated Album Preview set. Graphic’s focus on the relationship between images and sound is explored further in Silent Comics, one of the Festival’s last events on the Sunday evening. A unique world premiere event in six parts, Silent Comics sees a lineup of international and local musicians perform live original scores to classic and contemporary wordless comics by renowned illustrators.

Silent Comics takes place in the Opera theatre, where a large projection screen is hung from centre stage. The promo animation for the festival plays on the screen. The Opera House’s distinctive sails are re-imagined as a futuristic glasshouse dome-like structure atop a floating island in the sky, running on oversized propellers. Flying towards it is a fleet of helium blimps with large LCD screens, playing animations, comic book pages and the Festival’s tagline; ‘Meet the mythmakers of the modern world.’ This is accompanied by Mingus, an ambient track by Sydney-based electronic trio Seekae, one of the featured artists in the show. The atmosphere is set, and the helium blimps land on the floating island utopia where the mythmakers of the modern world await.

A particular language doesn’t confine silent narratives. They instead use a more universal language to convey an action through sequencing, pacing and gestures. Silent Comics explores the idea of an entirely pictorial language of storytelling, which is enriched and emphasised through the universal language of instrumental musical scores, varying from jazz, orchestral to electronic.

This can be seen in Part Two of Silent Comics, performed by Sydney electric string quartet FourPlay, who score UK-based artist/writer Roger Langridge’s comic Nowhere Special. The story follows the comedic misadventures of Fred, a simple, single-toothed clown and his anthropomorphic, tailcoat-wearing ape companion, illustrated and rendered in heavy black ink and meticulous crosshatching. The comic pages move along the large projection screen as the quartet play behind it.

FourPlay’s jazzy score created entirely with two violins, a cello and viola changes tempos as Langridge’s protagonists enter a mysterious house. Creaking strings imitate the sound of a creaking door, as they encounter wild animals and other surprises. Sweet, serene music is played when a beautiful peacock, the only figure in full colour, entrances Fred. This serenity is cut short however, when the hungry circus ape companion blows off the peacock’s head with a shotgun. The simple, slapstick humour silently illustrated through the pacing of sequence panels on the pages and character gestures, is enhanced by FourPlay’s perfectly timed electric orchestral score.

Roger Langridge, Nowhere Special 09, 2009. Digital Image. Courtesy of the artist.

Legendary cartoonist Will Eisner (1985, p. 24), credited for creating the first graphic novel in 1978, notes that: ‘Images without words, while they seem to represent a more primitive form of graphic narrative, really require some sophistication on the part of the reader. Common experience and a history of observation are necessary.’

Unlike the myriad of sequential images in film to show movement in time, graphic narratives use only the most essential images to communicate meaning. What makes graphic narratives so engaging is exactly this primal requirement for the reader to decipher a story from images alone. It isn’t surprising, as graphic narratives are rooted deep within human artistic history. Pioneering urban artist Mark Wigan (2007, p. 57) plots these points in history:

‘Graphic art and pictorial storytelling has a long rich history that can be traced back to the cave paintings of Altamira and Lascaux, Egyptian hieroglyphics … and Roman manuscripts. Antecedents and precursors of today’s narrative illustration can be found in Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, Japanese woodblock prints … and the idiosyncratic book art of William Blake.’

The earliest comic books emerged with print media, drawing inspiration from satire and music hall slapstick comedy. Today, the comic book medium has moved beyond just comedy, and encompasses a variety of genres. However, the sequential nature of pictorial narratives is inherently effective in the adventure genre. This is shown in Australian illustrator, animator and toy designer Nathan Jurevicius’ adventure graphic novel Scarygirl. Sydney electronic act Seekae in Part Four of Silent Comics scores this charming adventure story, following a mysterious pirate-girl who is lost and befriends wonderfully weird creatures. With the help of a giant octopus guardian and a wise rabbit guru, Scarygirl searches for her creator. Perhaps the most visually vibrant silent comic in the show, Scarygirl’s journey through colourful, erratic landscapes is flawlessly scored by Seekae’s heavily textured electronic sound, layered with ambient synthesisers, glitch-driven beats and live percussions. The camera directs your eyes across the beautifully illustrated pages, simulating the act of reading a comic book. No longer are you sitting in the Opera theatre looking at a projection screen, Silent Comics feels more like reading a comic book in your bedroom with the perfect soundtrack playing on your stereo.

Nathan Jurevicius, City Vision, 2009. Digital Image. Page 10 from Scarygirl graphic novel. Courtesy of the artist.

As with all the other musicians in Silent Comics, Seekae performed behind the projection screen and images. This idea mirrors the exact reverse of The Velvet Underground and Nico’s performances in front of large slide projections, in Andy Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable. This of course was back in the late-sixties and Warhol also had dancers. But perhaps extravagance wasn’t the intention behind this idea in Silent Comics. The talented musicians and noisemakers performing behind the screen keep the silent comics in the spotlight, and the interaction between visual and musical narrative becomes the star of the show.

While the stories of Nowhere Special and Scarygirl may seem simple and appealing to children, this isn’t always the case with the comic-book medium. The art of underground Comix pioneer Robert Crumb, wrought with confronting sexual imagery in a bold cartoonish style, is hardly recommended reading for children. Comix, an underground genre of comic books spawned from the late-sixties counterculture, is suitably spelt with an ‘x’ for its x-rated content openly exploring sex and drugs. Graphic co-curator Jordon Verzar told The Sydney Morning Herald that, ‘[Crumb’s] work helped define a generational movement, a certain zeitgeist’ (Purcell, 2011, p. 41).

Nathan Jurevicius, The Chase, 2009. Page 30 from Scarygirl graphic novel. Courtesy of the artist.

Crumb’s silent comic Abstract Expressionist Ultra Super Modernistic Comics (1967), is scored by Captain Matchbox in Part One of Silent Comics. The score becomes increasingly discordant as the screen trails along Crumb’s rebelliously jagged sequence panels, depicting odd organic forms and dark humour. Generally, Crumb’s art would be admittedly uncomfortable, but it forces us to confront a repressed human psyche and question exactly why we react in such a way.

Bell and Sinclair (2005, p. 7) comment that, ‘[the] old misplaced adage that … comics are just for kids [is] an accusation that comic-book art and, more generally, narrative illustration have seemingly battled against throughout their history. Only relatively recently have they started to receive the recognition and status as an art form that they deserve.’

Written language in graphic narratives doesn’t always succeed in telling a story. Perhaps sometimes the best way to say something is by not saying it at all. Narrative illustration, comic books and graphic novels continue to be an emerging presence in our contemporary landscape. Silent Comics succeeds in re-invigorating the highly understated medium of silent narration through combining the primal pictorial and musical languages. The diverse musical scores give the silent comics a voice that does not speak over it, but rather complement its artistry as a contemporary medium for storytelling. Silent narrators and modern musical composers are brought to centre stage at the Opera House, and Silent Comics ends Graphic 2011 with a bang, without even having to spell it out.

References

Bell, R & Sinclair, M 2005, Pictures & words: new comic art and narrative illustration, Lawrence King Publishing, London.

Eisner, W 1985, Comics and sequential art, Poorhouse Press, Florida.

Jurevicius, N 2003, Scarygirl: Art by Nathan, Outré Gallery Press, Melbourne.

Purcell, C 2011, ‘I’m a very eccentric, oddball character’, Sydney Morning Herald, 30 July 2011, p. 41.

Skinn, D 2004, Comix: the underground revolution, Collins & Brown, London.

Wigan, M 2007, Sequential Images, AVA Publishing, New York.

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Posted in Artwrite Issue 46, Artwrite Issue 46, Undergraduate Students, Semester 2, 2011 | Comments Off

To Keep Your Balance You Must Keep Moving

Tuesday, October 19th, 2010

Elliot Shields

Somewhere between the bronzed and barefooted casual activism of a dreadlocked Combi captain and the bitter disenchantment of a red-in-the-face political rally goer lies a crusade every bit worthy of the common mans attention. In The Balance, currently on at Sydney’s MCA, has skilfully evaded the cringe inducing hang-ups of angry and naive environmentally conscious art in favour of rationality, to which it owes its success.

Part discussion forum, part art exhibition, In The Balance: Art For A Changing World references the increasingly indelicate push and pull between our environment and us. Whilst this is obviously an important relationship, it is also ripe fodder for an entire subculture of idealism. These idealists use and reuse the clichéd semiotics of ‘STOP NUCLEAR POWER’ banners, ambiguous “statistics” handed to you within a threefold pamphlet or perhaps a completely facile chain email. No elaboration is required on the measured level of care generally shown towards these kinds of crusades.

Equally measured yet entirely positive has been the MCA’s approach, bringing together the interesting and the relevant in order to kick start the care levels.  With work from over 30 artists and artist groups on display, the entrance gallery immediately provides the exhibitions symbolic counterpoints. David Stephenson’s immaculate type C prints of industrial landscapes, and the intellectually engaging Environmental Audit realised by Lucas Ihlein.

Stephenson’s photographs are stunning. Large and luscious, his technical proficiency is undeniable as the cold lifeless structures that fill his New Monuments series leave us reconsidering our effect on the land. A series of photographs of dams from around America, the large concrete dams are as much a barrier between our gaze and the river they contain, as they are concrete monoliths. Sitting between walls of earth as if products of some futuristic archaeological dig, they are an effective reminder that the costs of these physical changes imposed upon our environment are certainly not as temporary as the cost of their construction. 

Adjunct to this room of photographs, intended assumably as the starting point of the exhibition is Lucas Ilhein’s Environmental Audit. Explicitly titled, Ihlein’s work is a quantitative audit of the exhibition’s environmental impact, completed as part of a seminar, complete with large blackboards that span all four walls. Using information about the power consumption and environmental efficiency of each work on show, as well as the gallery itself, Ihlein asks the audience whether the effect of the exhibition will outweigh its costs. Does the exhibition with its high aspirations of sustainability politics still have a voice when the audience has been made aware of the power consumption of every light bulb, or every plasma screen? It’s an irony often raised by critics or by the audience, but rarely by the artist, yet Ihlein has highlighted it’s importance most successfully. The works further success comes from its online presence as a blog regularly updated by Ihlein which documents the ongoing tribulations of keeping the work current. As parts of the exhibition change and environmental impacts are discovered, he informs the reader (both via the blackboard and the blog) thus offering an online forum for comments and discussion in which he himself participates.

It is an interesting work and one of the exhibitions greatest assets, enabling the exhibition to be self aware without the disguise and compromise that may be seen if carried out by the museum itself. Ihlein is also able to point out potential flaws in other works and offer a place to discuss them, as he has done in an assessment of Lauren Berkowitz’s Bags.

Bags, originally exhibited in 1994, consists of two large walls created out of white plastic grocery bags. The bags were donated by the public and by the gallery staff, which would generally be read as a comment on the number of plastic bags in existence and how they are almost all completely non-degradable plastic. That being said, it is bizarre that it was actually quite a struggle for Berkowitz to source the number of bags that she required for the work. Instantly, the integrity of the work is degraded as it implies a condition of society that perhaps does not exist anymore. Disregarding the crude pun, If there were such a large plethora of bags floating around, worthy of commentary, then the work should have been quite easy to construct. This pitfall is still quite short however, as to even consider it means the work has had some degree of success.

Particularly now, as Australia finds itself in a pronounced state of political unrest, an artwork capable of making an audience actually think about something as specific as the politics of sustainability has to be considered quite powerful. If Berkowitz’s Bags is but a whimsical tip of the iceberg (a metaphor soon to be out of date), sitting in relative solitude observing Susan Norrie and David Mackenzie’s spectacularly depressing footage of the Sidoarjo mud flow and its victims offers us the cold, dark and deep reality.

The mud flow, which began in 2006, dispels thousands of cubic metres of mud a day, and has so far displaced 50,000 people from their homes with marginal support from the company responsible or the Indonesian government. A bleak reality appears on the two screens before you, and after a wry grin at Diego Bonetto’s request to befriend Sydney’s weeds, or a straight out laugh at the operation of Amy Franceschini and the Futurefarmers Sunshine Still, entering to a woman in hysterical tears over the loss of her home is a sobering experience. Coming face to face with that kind of reality in the setting of the exhibition becomes ceremonious. Inescapable due to it its size and far more poetic than a newspaper article or bulletin on your home television, you’re forced to perceive it as a virtual reality, something which is moving and breathing but far removed from Berkowitz’s biomorphic bags, completely emotive. As dark as the room is, it does nothing if not encourage the audience to view the exhibition in a brand new light, inaccessible to Ilhein’s audit but having a far greater affect on our environment, and how we perceive it.

‘In The Balance: Art For A Changing World’ Is on now at the Museum  of Contemporary Art, Sydney.
Exhibition Closes 31 October 2010

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Posted in Artwrite Issue 44 | Comments Off