Seven Red

The last post deals with one high tech means for killing graffiti culture, the Wii spraypaint controller. It’s fitting that the very next day I should hear of another. NPR’s All Things Considered had a story titled “Cities Rely on High-Tech Method to Stop Graffiti” (you can listen here) on some new high tech sensor that nabs those little tagging punks in the act, son. In the last post, I mentioned in an off-hand way that the human sense organs could detect the chemical make-up of even different colors of spray paint, given enough exposure. Apparently, this newfangled graffiti bustin’ implement works the same way, detecting the chemical trace of aerosol paint, and immediately alerting cops to the location of spraying. The story is very hush hush about how the thing actually works, no doubt because there are easy work-arounds, or because the sensor is too expensive for widespread deployment, or because they generally want to create a panoptic effect of some kind by implying its presence, or (likely) a combination of these reasons. The sensor, in any case, is the flip-side of the dual control strategy, where one side brings graffiti into the fold by aestheticizing it, while the other side brings it into the fold through legal controls, even including chemical detection. And indeed, the interview (I think with Melissa Block) plays out the dynamic I’ve been describing here fairly well. After a discussion of the cost of graffiti on communities followed by an elusive description of the technology, you get to the real meat of it. Block, playing out the liberal line, at some point asks, “Do you think there’s any artistic merit to what they do?” This is the rescue operation on the poor inner city kids with no legitimate “creative outlet.” It’s the moment of aestheticization that separates graffiti (for good reason) from other forms of “vandalism.”

But the police chief she’s interviewing, named Manny Solano, actually knows what he’s talking about. His answer goes something like this: “Listen, sure there’s artistic merit, and we’ve put up ‘free walls’ for them to do their murals on, but they just don’t take to it. And if you actually talk to the graffiti writers, they seem to hate the free legal walls. The murals are very beautiful, some of them, but these kids don’t want to do the legal pieces. They want the adrenaline rush.” It’s pretty clear, in other words, that Solano actually listens to writers, like any good cop, and hears what they’re saying . Now, I think this easy answer about “adrenaline” is probably right, and certainly works with the argument I’ve been making here, but it is itself too isolated, too medicalized, as if the whole complex economy boils down that. Adrenaline is an effect rather than a cause; it explains little on its own. But it’s a hundred times more correct than this business of the legal walls and creative outlets.  In any case, if you want a better sense of how this stuff actually works, listen to Solano’s response. He’s dead on accurate, and demonstrates real knowledge of the culture.

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