Hey public space may i leave my mark on you?

‘In a city that belongs to no-one, people are constantly seeking to leave a trace of themselves…’ (Sennett 1990:205)
Photo taken along St James Street P.O.S

 The role of space in everyday life has become of importance as more and more public spaces are becoming privatized. The picture above displays a rather public wall in the city being marked as a tagger's own private space. Typically in urban environments space is a rare commodity and a privilege for those who can afford it. Many graffiti artists do not have ownership of space in urban areas and may seize any opportunity they have to "own" such space by marking on private or public spaces (Gunes et al., 2006).
In cities where space is a privilege, graffiti artists' view on space is quite different than the typical citizen. They view space in an absolute sense where it is free until it becomes occupied. These "underutilized" spaces are then used by the graffiti artists to leave their mark on to be identified by their peers and showcase their skills to the rest of the graffiti artists (Bandaranaike, 2001).
In today's world where graffiti has evolved from gang graffiti or tagger graffiti to artistic graffiti, it is viewed as a spatial phenomena that allows for artists to defend a space for themselves in an urban landscape (Gunes et al., 2006). Due to the positioning of graffiti on public and private property that near to public spaces, graffiti has become prominent in urban landscapes as they are seen all throughout the world in many different cities. As mentioned in previous blogs, graffiti work has also gained attention from many tourists, so it has become etched as apart of an urban landscape.

References:  

• Gunes, Serkan and Yilmaz, Gulsen (2006) Understanding Graffiti in the Built Environment, 42^nd ISoCaRP Congress 2006.
• Bandaranaike, S. 2001. Graffiti: A culture of aggression or assertion? The Character, Impact and Prevention of Crime in Regional Australia Conference, 2-3 August 2001.