Graffiti Drift
June 15, 2006
Macha in Pigtails
Most graffiti is the territorial excretions of rival packs. Marking boundaries. You can work with those and the fields of domination and aggression, feudal reality in miniature. Some graffiti sends messages and tells stories; let's you know how the subculture and black market moves. Walking streets they had never seen before a normal person would be worried, would be lost. I was finding my way by following spray painted signs. The drift was an altered state of consciousness. What mattered to the normal world was ignored and what was peripheral was key. I navigated by the territorial tags and was tracking the informational glyphs.
In the liminal state of the drift I could feel the difference, the flavours, of the territories. Meanings and senses flow together into new constellations. I walked the same streets as everyone else but on a different level. I experienced a different layer. The graffiti could be dated like an archaeologist unearthing pottery shards of Troy. How deep is it, was this fragment made before or after which technique? The paint, pen, and stickers marked a language of shape and colour that told tales of sex, commerce, and violence. Like hieroglyphics in Ancient Egypt, the greatest worry is that your name will be effaced.
I was timid I made my signs in chalk. A little Gretel leaving breadcrumbs to mark my path, at least I would know if I doubled back or went in a circle. I was stalking other people's signs. There was someone telling a story with silver metallic sharpie that I just had to get to the end of. Whoever it was understood the fields and was turning them to his advantage. This person was cultivating the energy to make some sort of deal with the streets themselves.
The sliver graffiti always had some elements in common and yet each find was unique. There was a central sign that was always the same, a glyph constructed of straight lines and angles without any curves. I figured it was the author's name and that it was probably a bind rune like a viking might use. Around this and the other main sign were smaller symbols some of which I recognized as astrological signs and others that were likely runes.
The other main symbol shifted from location to location. It changed, evolved, over time. I decided this must symbolize the streets themselves or the deal the author was negotiating with them. I was pretty sure that the negotiations were coming to a close. The earlier versions were rounded with loops and crossings that indicated it had been constructed with the alphabetic technique for making sigils. The artist would have taken a statement or a name and removed repeated letters and then made a shape by fitting the letters together. Renditions from the middle of the negotiations showed signs of having absorbed astrological symbols and runes that surrounded it. The newest forms were pared down and starting to show a real simplicity. The final version would be the true name of the city as told to the artist.
There was power here.
Entry Filed under: Spooky!
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Feathered Sanctuary 
1.
BoB Ramburzin |
June 17, 2006 at 5:49 pm
Asombroso!
Parece ser que hay más personas en el mundo que pueden ver el espacio urbano desde otras esferas. Me alegra e impulsa, redescubrir la ciudad es la clave.
2.
Macha in Pigtails |
June 17, 2006 at 6:38 pm
Wow, my first comment on my new blog is in spanish. I don’t know if it is only the city that we need to revisit but more space itself. We must see the world with new eyes.
Are you a situationist?
Google Translate:
La ululación, mi primer comentario sobre mi nuevo blog está en español. No sé si es solamente la ciudad que necesitamos revisitar solamente más espacio sí mismo. Debemos ver el mundo con los ojos nuevos.
¿Eres un situationist?
3.
BoB Ramburzin |
June 23, 2006 at 1:55 am
No señorita, se podria decir Ningunista.
Las cosas tambien se estan moviendo por aca en Bs.As. y nada mejor, para probar que no estas loco, que ideas que coinciden en otros lugares completamente distintos del planeta.
4. Drifting with Deleuze &la&hellip | September 10, 2006 at 6:53 am
[…] The Situationist Drift is an example of a program that creates a Body without Organs and circulates charge across it. […]
5.
Antibush |
February 15, 2007 at 12:14 am
Bush goes ballistic about other countries being evil and dangerous, because they have weapons of mass destruction. But, he insists on building up even a more deadly supply of nuclear arms right here in the US. What do you think? Why has bush turned our country from a country of hope and prosperity to a country of belligerence and fear.
If ever there was ever a time in our nation’s history that called for a change, this is it!
The more people that the government puts in jails, the safer we are told to think we are. The real terrorists are wherever they are, but they aren’t living in a country with bars on the windows. We are.
6.
xmcjgp |
May 23, 2007 at 12:26 pm
Hello, Greetings!
I’ll be back.