Street Art

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I'm down almost 13 pounds this month, woohoo!

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Rationale

Here is my data visualisation

International Homicide Statistics

When searching for a data set I found myself searching through different countries data websites trying to find an interesting topic. So when I found the UN's database, the topic that really stuck out to me was the international homicide rates. I think there is also something inheritly intriguing about homicide especially within a western audience where our television programs are filled with crime shows.

The data set had countires as one of the key values so I had no doubt that a world map would be the most appealing form to visualise the data. After looking through different sites such as visual.ly and infostecthics I found that all of the geographical maps were either interactive websites or info-graphics.  I started to notice that these interactive sites usually had multiple views or filters that could be applied and compared to the often single view of the infographic. This meant that my own data set would be more suited to an interactive style as I could divide it into the 17 seperate years. 

Initially I was looking into creating a 3d interactive globe using processing but I could not find any pre existing frameworks to build upon and and with a beginner level knowledge of coding this option soon proved impossible. I looked into other pre-made visualisations on websites such as many eyes but once I found google charts tools I could not pass up on the level of customisability it allowed. 

I chose to filter my data year by year creating two graphs for each year. The first graph displays the total body count per country  on a colour axis scale as well as providing the additional information about the rate per 100k population and is intended to allows the viewer to visually compare the change of any singular country over different years. The second graph uses a the marker mode and is scaled both on size and colour axis. This graph is a more proportional and accurate visual representation when comparing the different countries in the same year against each other. I also included a page under 'more' in which created a marker graph based on the averages of countries with 3 or more data entires over the past 17 years. I set this rule because many countries did not consistently submit data to the UN and I felt it would not be accurate to display countries with so few results. This page also shows the top 5 countries with the lowest and highest averages as well as providing extra information about my sources and other interesting statistics that I discovered whilst analysing this data set.

I created a visual colour scheme for the website that reflected the subject matter. I wanted the website to function as a kind of viewer for the graphs so I based its size and layout around having all the interactive elements and filters immediately visible on the screen. I also customised the colour scheme of the graphs to match the rest of the site. 

Unfortunately some technical limitations were that the google charts tool only let me enter 2 values per country otherwise I would have been able to include the source of each piece of data e.g. WHO, National police etc and the source type either being from the criminal justice or public health systems. If I were to expand upon this project I would have added a way to filter the data by countries however I was wary of including this filter as it would have been a combinatorial explosion because there were 207 countries. I would have also added an option for the viewer to enlarge the map, and added a list of those countries for which these was no data (eg. China) and adding possible major events which may have contributed to a rise or fall in the statistics. 

My data visualisation is works as a functional, interactive presentation which falls under the genre of crime and statistics.

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Meta Post

And finally it all comes to an end. Its been a good run, i've learnt a lot and i've really enjoyed finding good content post about.

I aimed to centre my blog around the content of it's posts because I realised that original posts for me were the most important and enjoyable aspect of tumblr. I noticed that when i was using tumblr I rarely strayed away from the dashboard, meaning that I was only engaging with the content of the posts without venturing all the way to someones blog. I started to model my blog around this concept valuing originality of posts and really promoting my blog almost solely through tumblr.

Now I realise that reblogs and sharing is a vital part of networked media but that kind of blog that just regurgitates other peoples content wasn't something I wanted to create. I wanted my followers to come for my blog posts. I was inspired by my favourite street art blog uksa and I feel that because I chose this more passive direction it would have slowed the growth of my blog because I was relying on users finding me.

I tested a variety of different posts like news style articles, google maps, short videos, artists galleries, using my own images and linking a movie. I attempted to use photos from creative commons when I could but soon found it was too hard to track down considering the amount of images and scarcity of photos from some of the artists I wanted to feature. I feel this is largely due to the nature of street art, once you start getting to more obscure artists the only quality photographs seem to have been take and publicised by the artists themselves.

The attention each post got changed very erratically probably due to my small amount of 21 followers over half of which are other networked media students. My most liked and reblogged post was actually 'Street Artist - MTO' which gather  around 13 reblogs, 6 likes and 21 notes. Although my most viewed post would be my 'Banksy in Bristol' google map post which has got a total of 119 views! This was pretty odd seeing as my blog only got a total of 19 visits. Yes thats right, one of my posts managed to get 100 more views that my actual blog. I attempted to redirect some of these people back to my site by adding my URL in the comments but in retrospect I should of added it at the end of the description.

Another interesting characteristic of my page views is that 10/19 of them came from the US. My bounce rate was quite high at around 80% and with a average visit duration of two and half minutes suggesting people only read around one post before leaving except for my four Californian visitors who seemed to dwell a little longer.

I added Facebook like buttons onto each post but i did not spam any shameless plug with my own profile.

I started this unit with absolutely no understanding whatsoever of HTML and CSS so I set about learning about them by going through all the beginner and even a few intermediate level HTML and CSS tutorials on the HTMLdog and W3school websites. After going through these I didn't have much technical issues apart from initially finding it difficult to understand how to position different elements on the page. I attempted to style my about page from scratch in the minimalist style that I used for my main pages. 

The three posts I picked because they reflected how I had applied concepts we had explored in the lectures and tutorials. That is creating personal google maps, how to credit image sources and being aware of copyrights laws and the tricky way they apply to street art or rather don't apply.

Here they are

Street art - Stolen

Banksy in Bristol

Graffiti Battles: King Robbo vs Banksy

Enjoy.

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Street artist Profile - Alexandre Farto

This guy has an absolute ton of awesome stuff. He makes his work on using lots of different materials and some really unique techniques.

Explosions. Yeah seriously this guy plants explosives in the walls then uses them to etch an image (usually a face) into the wall.

Here is another video where he paints an images then pyschically chips it into the wall. this series is called 'Scratiching the Surface' i sugest you checkout the rest of his stuff at http://www.alexandrefarto.com

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ANU School Of Art

there's some really cool street art up at the ANU school of art. Scheduled for a repaint soon I hear so enjoy it while it lasts!

Here are some photos I took

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MTO - FL : Unpremeditated movie

A really interesting selfmade documentary from MTO

FL from MTO on Vimeo.

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Tagtical Media - MTO

Another Series made by MTO in the streets of Berlin.

"ANARCHO-SYNDICALISM CREW."

"WE FOUND THE BODY 50M FURTHER."

"WHEN BERLIN SMELLS LIKE LONDON ..."

"REBEL WITH A CAUSE."

"UTOPIA IS OVER."

"NICE TRY."

"YOU KNOW THE RULES ..."

"ON THE FUN."

"NO COUNTRY FOR OLD TOURIST."

"WHAT WOULD YOUR MOTHER SAY !?"

"THAT'S WHY."

"FREE AT LEAST."

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Street Artist - MTO

MTO is a french street artist based in Berlin producing some really awesome stuff.

Here is a introductory gallery of some of his work.

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BLU - MUTO

Another very interesting abstract and slightly creepy street art stop motion from BLU.

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Now that you've seen another video by BLU you may be starting to pick up his art style.

Size and scale play a big part as his characters split up and reform into various shapes and transform in metamorphic ways.

These characters are often depicted eating or detaching themselves or another element as they grow, split or transform themselves.

You can see how he uses a zoom to transfer between locations as he will often focus upon a character or an element such as an eye.

BLU loves to show things multiplying and repeating themselves and this often couples with a sense of movement through the environment.

And finally the sound gives the video a sharp jerky feeling combined with the low frame rate of the stop motion.

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BLU - BIG BANG BIG BOOM

Really cool piece of street art and stop motion about the evolution of the world.

The amount of time and resources that go into all of BLU's videos is very impressive not to mention the scale on which he creates his work.

BIG BANG BIG BOOM - the new wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

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BLU BLU

Here's a little teaser of a couple of short videos i'll be posting about by an artist called BLU you can check out more of his stuff at BLUBLU.org

  if you want the full quality gif go here.

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Banksy In Bristol

A small map I created depicting the various locations of street art by Banksy in the Bristol area. 

View Banksy in Bristol in a larger map

See if you can find them in street view!

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Street Art - Stolen!

Photo credit - artdaily.org

February, 23 2013.

Banksy's piece 'Slave labour' gets removed by unknown individuals and appears in Miami Fine Art auction house with an expected sale price of $500,000 - $700,00 USD.

2012

Photo credit - nytimes.com

Slave labour was created in 2012 on the side of the Poundland store which had been scrutinised under controversy that some of their goods had been created by children in India. It came in correspondence with Queen Elizabeth's diamond jubilee in an area that was a hot spot for some of the worst London riots during 2011.

View Larger Map

A second item by Banksy titled 'wet dog' owned by New York gallery owner Stephan Kezlers was in the auction with a potential price of $600,000 - $800,000 USD. Kezlers has been renown for 'salvaging' works on behalf of the property's owners and then purchasing and reselling them. Kezler has come under fire from many critics saying he is selling stolen art but he argues it belongs to the properties on which it first appeared. When asked about the acution he said " we are very happy that an auction has tried to get Banksy's street works into auction. It's a breakthrough.".

Photo credit - whatsonyourwall.com

Photo credit - huffingtonpost.com

Fortunately both items were withdrawn from the auction at the last minute after discussion between the Auction house owner Frederic Thut and the unidentified seller. Thut says that he was inundated with angry phone calls from the UK regarding the work but insists it was not stolen. 

Council leader Claire Kober says that it is a "a true credit" to the community who rallied against the sale and Alan Strickhard from the local Haringey council says that"People are rightly disgusted that a gift to the community could be privately sold for huge profit," 

The wall has since been commemorated by other street artists.

Photo credit - artdaily.org

Banksy style rat holding a sign 'Why'

Photo credit - reuters.com

This idea of reselling street art defy's some of the fundamental concepts of street art by using the work for personal profit rather than sharing a message with the community in which it was created.

In other areas using someone else's work in this manner to generate your own profit without their permission would be considered criminal. yet unfortunately this is the risk for un-commissioned street art there is no legal framework for protection only the voice of the community. which in this case it has proved enough as the community has stirred up enough of a storm to garner international media attention to stop the sale.

But will this be the end? I have no doubt that Kezler will continue to try and steal and sell Banksy's work for his own gain and with the figures it brings I would not be surprised if more people with similar intentions join the trend.

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Its all about perception

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The Aftermath

Even after the end of the initial conflict Team Robbo sticks true to their word as they continue to deface Banksy's work through London.

  This small series is what appears to be Banksy's only response to Team Robbo.

Team Robbo truly is stick to their kings words as their campaign continues through London leaving little untouched.

But is it justified? After all Banksy was the first to initiate the first bout in the graffiti wars so should his work be treated any differently? This is a condition all street/graffiti artists submit to. Once their work is up they lose control over it. Weather it be removed immediately by the council or tagged over by others over time. General media response seems to support Banksy because of the comparably crude responses of Team Robbo.

Banksy broke the unwritten code of the local graffiti community of which King Robbo was large player. And so the aftermath although deemed foul play by Banksy's larger support base is acceptable recompense in the eyes of the local graffiti community.

Whats your opinion? Who do you support Team Robbo or Banksy? Leave a comment below!

  See more of Team Robbo's campaign here

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Graffiti Battles: King Robbo vs Banksy

It all started with this 

1985 - Camden, London. One of the earliest pieces of graffiti in created by now legendary graffiti artist King Robbo. Folklore tells us that King Robbo and Banksy were originally introduced through mutual friends at a party in the late 90's where Banksy told Robbo "Ive never heard of you". Robbo tells reporters that it was Banksy's cocky manner which lead to his feud inspiring response "You may have never heard of me but you'll never forget me". Accompanied with a swift back hand their encounter started what would turn out to be a 5 year long turf war.

2006 - Robbo's original piece is slowly deteriorating from a series of others tags

2009 - Banksy stencils a man wallpapering up the graffiti

2 weeks later - Robbo elects to respond by incorporating his own name with the painter

A few months later - Banksy returns with an all to convenient response

Soon after - Robbo attempts to restore his original rebuttal

The local council steps after getting tired of all this graffiti mischief

July 2010 - Team Robbo restart the funny business

The Council is still having none of it

January 2011 - Banksy returns with a strange living room depiction complete with pre burnt chair

April 2nd 2011

King Robbo has an accident bringing him into a life threatening coma before he can respond to Banksy's latest depiction.

November 2011 - Banksy 

December 2011 - Team Robbo repaint the original design seemingly ending the conflict

Even as this small war comes to a close it seems the two are no closer to making amends. A recent interview with King Robbo shows he still regards Banksy as having a lack of respect for the graffiti community and their code calling him "just a toy with a PR team.". As for Banksy his response is left to small assortment of humorous captions for images found above. Team Robbo continues to try to define a line between graffiti and street art by tagging many of Banksy's works creating a us vs them mentality.

Find out about the aftermath next post!

Credit of all photos can be found here at Banksy's website