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A random sample of sixty individuals were sent the following questions; thirty responded to one of the following images, and thirty to the other.
Age: Under 18/ 18-25/ 26-35/ 36-45/ 45+Interview: 31 July 2006, with a respondent at 'Pictures on Walls' Headquarters where they sell renowned graffiti writer's prints (see www.picturesonwalls.com).
Alice: Firstly can I ask if you are still doing graffiti?
Respondent: Am I still painting? (Pause) Yeah.
Alice: And what is your name?
Respondent: My name is [name removed] and I go under the graffiti tag of [name removed]
Alice: How long have you been involved in graffiti?
Respondent: Probably since I was about 14 or 15 so I'm 36 now so yeah 22 years, more than half my life.
Alice: In the 70's when graffiti arrived it was part of a hip hop package attached with everything else, like the music and the break dancing…
Respondent: Yeah, totally
Alice: And now, however, to what extent do you think it's still attached to those roots?
Respondent: Well yeah exactly what you said, it kind of started off in the 70s in New York it would have been nearer the 80s and it was kind of imported from the States as a package and it was the music, the dancing… and the graffiti, and it was totally that, and any kind of kids my age just totally got into that and they did the break dancing, the rapping, or the graffiti. Yeah it was totally that package. I think that kind of got exported from New York to pretty much every major city in the world. And it was completely the three elements and it wasn't just the graffiti on it's own it went together. But nowadays? Not at all. You know, in New York it's still heavily associated with Hip Hop, but you go to other parts of the world and it isn't associated with Hip Hop or rap at all.
Alice: What would you say it's associated with now? Or is it its own entity now?
Respondent: It's its own entity now because it's been around for, you know, twenty five thirty years. It's developed and it's moved into different areas. Yeah it's grown and the kids that were into electro and break dancing probably aren't the kids that are doing it now and you know kids that have grown up listening to rock music. Because graffiti now stands on its own. You can quite easily be into graffiti, into rock music, metal, you go to Scandinavia and those kinds of places and they're into their heavy metal and they're all out there painting trains.
Alice: In all my interviews I've heard graffiti referred to as an addiction, as a drug. Do you think this may be why it's seen as unacceptable, because it is seen as uncontrolled?
Respondent: Um… I don't know, graffiti's a buzz; it's not a particularly serious crime. Although the authorities have bandied around figures of fucking so and so million and clean it up and all that stuff. At the end of the day it's not a particularly serious crime, all you're really doing is changing the colour of something. And you know sometimes you're making a mess, sometimes you make it better, whatever. But it's… (pause) breaking the law and getting away with it is a buzz. You know, you chat to any kind of criminal and it's exciting. Graffiti is exciting. So in that respect, it's kind of addictive. Graffiti itself isn't addictive. You know, standing there painting a wall that you're allowed to paint isn't addictive. But the buzz and excitement of doing something that you're not allowed to do and getting away with doing it is kind of addictive.
Alice: A lot of what my dissertation is about is place and it seems that graffiti is a fight over place. Graffiti writers try and get their images seen as publicly as possible, and authorities try and keep it as controlled as possible, and the public see this fight over space cause Tony Blairs in the newspapers washing it off walls and then advertisers use graffiti to sell products so it's very confusing with these conflicting images. If anywhere, where would you say graffiti belonged?
Respondent: Uh… (pause) It doesn't belong in a controlled, sterile environment. Graffiti's all about freedom and impulse and movement and it doesn't work at organised festival events where the festival organisers throw up like a mile of ply board wall and get a load of kids down there to paint it. That's not really graffiti, graffiti's all about excitement and for me it kind of belongs on the side of a train. That's where it belongs for me. But going back to what you were saying about fighting for places, you know, a lot of graffiti writers paint on the side of train tracks because loads of trains go past therefore loads of people see it and along certain train tracks you're going to have good spots, places that are going to you know… Same as advertisers, advertisers want to get the prime positions and if you look at billboard advertising, a space on the side of the motorway as you're coming into London will be far more expensive to hire than, you know, a place on the side of a farm house in the middle of Yorkshire. So it's the same sort of thing graffiti writers want to get these prime positions and amongst the graffiti world they'll fight and squabble over these kinds of places, some of them will go down there and paint this massive big thing just as the trains roll into Paddington station for example and someone else will go back and go over that. And they all want these prime positions and then obviously graffiti writers want their stuff to be seen by as many people as possible and the authorities on the other hand who want it to be seen by as little amount of people as possible so as we paint it, they clean it, as they clean it, we paint it. Never ending circle.
Alice: With the website and what you do here, it's like small timers that have made it big, the most obvious one that comes to mind is Banksy, so it seems his art has found its place. He's been able to make a bit of money and it's wildly popular so, obviously, the main objective is that everyone in public has seen it. But, would someone like Banksy or Nick Waller or D*Face or anyone like that will they still have a loyalty to the streets? Will they still do what they did initially?
Respondent: Yeah, I think all the people that we have on the website that started off as street artists, it's like, there's a difference between graffiti writers and street artists. Graffiti writers tend to paint graffiti more for themselves and other graffiti writers and they're not that interested in getting fame or recognition out of those kind of circles. With street artists, people like D*Face, people like Banksy, they're not really from that traditional graffiti world and what they do kind of explores different avenues and has a wider and greater appeal to the general public. And I think there's definitely a difference between graffiti and street art. The street artists we have on our site still paint stuff on the street, they haven't joined up with pictures on walls as see it as their next career move, they see this as earning a little bit of money. With a lot of people we have on the site, they've been painting stuff on the street, sticking up posters, sticking up stickers, and there's people out there that have seen their stuff, are into their stuff and want to buy it and artists as a rule aren't particularly good at that side of their business. Artists always have agents and people that deal with that and that's where we come into things. There's a massive amount of people out there that want to buy Banksy stuff, Banksy is an artist and doesn't want to be doing this so he gives us stuff, we turn it into screen prints, we sell it and every whatever it is, we send him a cheque. His main drive, his main interest is creating art and being an artist, same with D*Face, same with all of them. They haven't stopped making art, sticking up stickers, fly posters, just because we're here. This is just kind of like something extra.
Alice: Graffiti isn't confined to a specific class or race but it does seem to be very gendered in that it's done mainly by guys like at the Lovebox, there weren't hardly any female graffiti artists there. What it is that you think attracts males or prevents females from getting involved?
Respondent: I know of a few girl graffiti writers but it's kind of the same as skateboarding, BMXing, it's like a bit of a rough… it can be rough, it's about breaking into train yards, breaking into trains, running away from the police, jumping over fences, climbing up buildings to paint stuff, and you know because of that girls aren't particularly as suited as men to do this kind of stuff. You know, girls like wearing make-up…
Alice: We have some shocked looks in the office (girl sitting on adjacent desk on the phone shakes head disapprovingly)
Respondent: And, um, yeah… It's just the way that it is. Because of how it is men do it and women don't really do it. It's not that women can't do it, there are women out there that do it.
(Girl on phone: You've got Miss Van)
Alice: Who's Miss Van?
Respondent: She just paints knickers (laughs).
Alice: Finally… drawing from your website, you are also stuck on a desert island and you have met the locals and you have to describe the way graffiti makes you feel in four words so they can understand it. What are your four words?
Respondent: (Pause) Don't know… Fun, makes me laugh…. Yeah basically it's fun and it makes me laugh and that's basically why I do it. Yeah it's fun and it makes me laugh.
(Girl in office: Gotta have a hobby)
Respondent: Yeah, you gotta have a hobby!
Alice: What do you think you'd put your passions into if you didn't do what you do?
Girl in office: (laughs) Alcohol and drugs!
Respondent: I don't know. Yeah I don't know.
Alice: Cause a lot of the guys I've talked to says there's nothing really you can do that is as original and that's your own…
Respondent: Yeah it's kinda weird the amount of old graffiti writers that kind of did graffiti with an unbelievable passion and then got older… and you know it's about legging it away from police and jumping over fences and all that kind of stuff and as you get older you can't do that anymore, you can't run as fast and before you know it you're getting arrested by police that are younger than you and it's like, hang on this isn't right. So you get older and you can't do it. There's like a large amount of graffiti writers from the old school that kind of, yeah, just filled that drive and passion by turning into massive alcoholics and massive drug addicts because it you know, it can be and it was for me a huge part of my life. All my waking time was spent either drawing outlines, nicking paint, checking out train lines, painting, you know, out tagging. I'd go to parties but the only reason I'd go to these parties was so I could leave and walk home and bomb all the way home. So if someone said do you want to go to a party here, like, it would be like all the way over in North London and I'd be like yeah, blinding, I haven't been over there before I can just walk home and bomb. So everything that I did was all based around graffiti and if you take that away from somebody and you can't do it anymore, it's like, what the fuck do you do? You've taken away everything from them. And yeah, loads of graffiti writers are massive alcoholics and massive drug addicts 'cause they need something to fill that void. You know it is a massive buzz so… you don't have anything to do anymore cause it's been taken away from you so what do you do to replace that high you used to get from graffiti. So yeah loads are drug addicts and alcoholics…. Which is a happy ending!
Alice: It is isn't it! Thank you very much.
Respondent: That's alright.
(End of Transcript)
