Physical Graffiti

I had a tweet a couple of weeks ago and finally have chance to give it some thought, with thanks to a few folks who suggested ideas.

A tweet from @Catrii asked for some assistance with a query regarding fieldwork: and related to the


Need some help! How would you measure graffiti differences quantitatively from between different areas (deprived to affluent)

This has some good potential as a Controlled Assessment investigation.


Graffiti is of course a very common aspect of urban life.

What is it ?
Where is it ?
What can be done about it ?

Graffiti is Latin for 'scribblings'. As a rail traveller entering London, graffiti is fairly ubiquitous along the railway line: every structure, wall and building that is within reach (and quite a few that look like they aren't)

It is often a consequence of accessibility. If there is a path or other access route to a place where people can be unobserved for a period of time, and there is a vertical surface, then it will be a possible spot for graffiti. It's a place-specific act.

Perhaps some element of the exploration could be based on the nature of the graffiti.
In terms of quantitatively.

Numbers
Count the number of separate tags
Consider the total coverage of an area
Consider the variation - which might related to the different number of artists
Consider the quality of graffiti - how would you assess this ? colours ? size ? complexity ? skill of the artist ?
Sampling would have to be taken into consideration if this was an investigation....

Coverage : this might involve some sort of reference materials: images of sample areas that have been covered in graffiti to the extent of 50%, 60%, 70%  etc. similar to the ones used to estimate coverage of vegetation on sand dunes.
Could produce a GOOGLE MAP or GOOGLE EARTH overlay with photographs of locations where graffiti was found, and some sort of density colour coding for the
There was also a BBC Class Clips programme which was an early 'outing' from Daniel Raven Ellison
The first clip, which looks at the mapping of graffiti is available by following THIS LINK

Luke, who features in the programme has a web page HERE
Some teacher resources to accompany the programme(s), also written by Dan are available as a PDF download.
Will return to this in a resource I'm writing for the Collins Online Update series.

Update: Reminded of this just now when reading about Young People's Geographies - one of projects looked at graffiti....

Comments

AnneG said…
What a great idea! Sheffield is pretty good for quality street art (I wouldn't call it graffiti) - in fact there are some amazing new pieces I need to take photos of. Over the road from a very poor area... don't know if the artists are local or not.
Alan Parkinson said…
Thanks Anne
I think that's the difficult bit of this enquiry - DOES graffiti change ? does street art go up in particular areas ? does it reflect the area it's found in or not ? who are these folks doing it and where do they live ?
etc.
Pictures welcome