a story by randal eldon greene

GRAFFITI FIELD RESEARCH

ʢˉʚˉʡ   What interests me is the encomium of self-praise that blasts in often vibrant, blockbuster throw-ups. What's in a name with this much energetic ego? That's the question I intend to explore in this dissertation. Really dive into the elements of the "see me" in the different styles of tag. Unpack the enchantment that is wrapped up in the creativity, self-aggrandizement, and crime of the tagger. Creativity: look at the colors, the warped way the words work as art. Like a logo, maybe, but painted in a form that, well, as my mother would say, is unreadable, even when it's not wildstyle. Unreadable to her, true. She shooming past it in a car or it shooming past her on a chugging train. But for those graffiti artists and urban dwellers familiar with the culture, it is absorbed and grokked and judged. Creative, but also adherent to the rules of the art form, the etiquette of tagging.

ͼ(o.0)ͽ   Or defacing

ʢˉʚˉʡ   Defacing—yes. That's one way of understanding it. The criminal element. The subversive act of spraying paint in places not permitted is a technical defacing. The sorties of aerosol paints splatting microscopically on the walls of . . . of where? Private property? A business storefront? The outside of a subway? The rotting carcass of a building, like this one, the windows busted, the floorboards breaking, the furniture a nest for varmints? What is defacing? Certainly when the words, forms, and images are painted onto the protected preserves of our federal parks. And unless it's abandoned, no one tags a church. But this is no national forest or house of worship. Do the mineral spirits flying onto wall, ceiling, floor act profanely or do they tap the sacred nature of radical expression? I say radical because of the inherent criminality. But criminality does not equal immorality any more than conviction equals guilt.

ͼ(o.0)ͽ   Of course your enlightened taggers or spiritual expressionists are making their divine portraitures via word art among plenty of penises. 

ʢˉʚˉʡ   I don't believe I appreciate your choice of subject. The cock and ball art of the graffiti world has always struck me as nothing more than the renderings of juveniles. I myself cannot find any appreciable value in drawings of dicks, crude splurts of the can to create orgastic juice.   

ͼ(o.0)ͽ   It's the interstitial artwork between the greater body of graffiti and your beloved fat, badass throw-ups. 

ʢˉʚˉʡ   That is an interesting proposition. I am glad you invited me to accompany you for field research. And not just because it's safer to venture into these abandoned places in pairs. I respect that brain of yours. Interstitial, you say. Huh, you might be onto something. Do elaborate.

ͼ(o.0)ͽ   I say interstitial because these more basic vandalisms, including all the hearts, smiley faces, and dumbass-was-here crap, works as a connective tissue between the larger murals and cacophony of truly artistic tags. In those squirting cocks is history, too: the impulse to take some spray paint and have a laugh. Ninety-nine percent of graffiti artists started out making shit just as dumb. Sure, some of them had a little more talent—created a less cartoonish cock or maybe went for the more divinely difficult vaginal spread—but it was still the warped humor of the undeveloped boy's brain that made it. Some of these cock and ball artists will work at it, become adept at the styles.

ʢˉʚˉʡ   So the value you appreciate is a historical one—the formative juvenilia of the great graffiti artists echoed in contemporary renditions of the cock and balls. The examination of genesis is fitting, considering the often fecund and virile portrayals of male anatomy. 

ͼ(o.0)ͽ   That's certainly an aspect, but my dissertation is more focused on the current use of the penial art form to literally stitch the murals, the throw-ups, the roll calls. They're the Ophanim of kings and queens. These crude genitalia edify in their vulgarity—the ugly friend to the riches on the walls.

ʢˉʚˉʡ   Are you sure you know what the word "edify" means?

ͼ(o.0)ͽ   Don't insult me.

ʢˉʚˉʡ   I'm just saying, a vulgar—to use the adjectival form of your word—a vulgar image cannot provide moral guidance to the writers. No, not to any of the artists, let alone the queens and kings or anybody writing in wildstyle, in 3D.

ͼ(o.0)ͽ   Let me ask you, how do you know good art from bad art? Or even better: art from nonart?

ʢˉʚˉʡ   That's easy. Art lacks utility, either by form or by placement, to answer the art from nonart query. 

ͼ(o.0)ͽ   Let's imagine a hypothetical world of pure non-utility. A world of pure art. One born in this world, can they understand what art is? I say they can't. You can only know art by knowing nonart. Likewise, you can only know good art by experiencing bad art. Bad art is indeed instructive in how it indicates what good is by referential signs inherent within its being. 

ʢˉʚˉʡ   And without good art, would one be able to tell what bad art is?

ͼ(o.0)ͽ   Of course not! And it's more than that. It's not that you just can't tell what's good from what's bad, but that one cannot think it. One cannot conceptualize the good, the bad. It, for all intents and purposes, doesn't exist. 

ʢˉʚˉʡ   If something can have inherent signs . . . a self-contained system of meaning or even qualities, then it does not matter whether its opposite is available for comparison. Does a nonapple exist that we may enjoy the existent apple?

ͼ(o.0)ͽ   Have you never eaten a nonapple? There's quite a variety, actually. Bananas, oranges, pears, kiwi. And I'm sure you've eaten good apples, mediocre apples, bad apples. 

ʢˉʚˉʡ  Yeah, fucking Red Delicious. I mean, like, who named those things "Delicious?"

ͼ(o.0)ͽ   Seriously, give me a Fuji, a Granny Smith, or a lobotomy.

ʢˉʚˉʡ   A durian!

ͼ(o.0)ͽ   Anything but a Red Delicious. It's a hundred percent inherently bad tasting. But you wouldn't be able to conceptualize the inherent quality of a Red Delicious without the referential quality of basically any other apple to Red Delicious apples. Red Delicious would simply be the apple—what apples taste like. Bad maybe compared to nonapple fruits, but not a bad apple. Just an apple.

ʢˉʚˉʡ   The problem with this argument is that the quality is still available, can be accessed through the comparison to other fruits. Likewise, graffiti. Let's just say that there were no penis pictures painted under bridges, marring playground equipment, or hidden inside the walls of abandoned warehouses and factories. No dumb juvenilia. Only tags signed with the ease of experience, throw-ups blazoned on subways, sharp and vibrant wildstyle in the ghettos, Banskys decorating the brick buildings of business. No hearts, no penises, nothing wack to hang one's head in dismay over. Still, we can conceptualize the goodness and badness of this graffiti because we have access to it. We find in comparison between good works of art degrees of goodness. Of course, you'd argue that degrees are the exact same thing you're talking about—it's just your examples utilized the extremes of degree. Fine, I accept that. Nevertheless, the inherent quality of graffiti is still accessible through other art. You yourself said it: a Red Delicious can be bad compared to nonapple fruit. Other existent nongraffiti art, be it good or bad, will illuminate the nature of graffiti art.  There is no hidden information.

ͼ(o.0)ͽ   But in your example—which in a sense is my example—there is hidden information. It is only shown through the existence of a sign which refers in some way to that hidden, albeit inherent, part. 

ʢˉʚˉʡ   So all things have relations. Does this make the penis graffiti worthy of study? Why not study the artists? Or the writers and their tags?

ͼ(o.0)ͽ   Understanding the system which undergirds the whole of vandalistic art is an important topic of study. And if my dissertation focuses in on a common and effecting motif, all the better. 

ʢˉʚˉʡ   I still don't appreciate your study of cock and ball graffiti. 

ͼ(o.0)ͽ   But you can understand why I study it?

ʢˉʚˉʡ   Wouldn't it be better if I don't? After all, my nonunderstanding should bring into relief the very understanding you're trying to impress upon me. 

ͼ(o.0)ͽ   A good point.

ʢˉʚˉʡ   Illuminated by bad points.

ͼ(o.0)ͽ   Roundly confirmed by nonpoints, nonsense.

Randal Eldon Greene is the author of Descriptions of Heaven (Harvard Square Editions) – a novella revolving around a linguist, a lake monster, and the looming shadow of death. Blabber, Chat, Shouting Match: 50 Dialogue-only Fictions is set to be published by Corona\Samizdat in the near future and will include "Graffiti Field Research". Greene interviews writers from around the world for Hello, Author at helloauthor.substack.com. He can be found on Instagram @randaleldongreene and his website is AuthorGreene.com