Opinion Essay on Street Art and Graffiti

Abstract:

Almost all people dream to leave their mark on earth after their death. Some of them leave Graffiti everywhere signed with their names as a special remark of them.

Introduction:

Street art and graffiti are two deeply linked words. The word graffiti is an Italian word that means to scratch on a surface. Today graffiti means to apply any unintentionally art on any surface or wall using different tools such as spray paints, pencils or stickers. There are some remarkable graffiti through different ages as walls of ancient city called Pompeii. In Northern Ireland, there are famous graffiti walls representing social and political issues besides, The Great Wall of Los Angeles in China. From this point, the scientist confessed the importance of communication through graffiti and their significance political messages all over the world. Nowadays, Graffiti has become an international academic content. Graffiti spreads out mainly as a reaction to unfairness, a call for revolution, to spreading of awareness among people in different fields either social, political or educational. Moreover, it can be for decorating the environment which yields positively on the Psychological state of the people.

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The phenomena of graffiti was first invented in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on the turn of the late 60's with writers like Cornbread and Cool Earl by someone called Taki 183 . Who is Taki 183 ? what is the relation between Taki 183 and the Graffiti ? Taki is the name of the person how first invented the graffiti and Taki’s real name was Demetrius and 183 is the number of the street where he lived this a young Greek boy who wrote his name almost in whole NewYork city and his name and his nickname start to appear on building, post-boxes, phone-boxes, underground tunnels and finally on subway cars . Also there are a lot of boys who make the same idea of graffiti-like joe 136, Barbara and Eva 62, Eel 159, Yank 135, Julio 204, Frank 207. The Graffiti has a bad impact on society and comes below vandalism as a society consider graffiti as crime. Also the business owner are exposed to loss of consumers and from the negative image of the graffiti . For example Chicago city has a budget of 6.2million dollars a year just to remove the graffiti. The graffiti is the language of the gangs and other subculture to communicate with each other by make a graffiti on the walls as a message for other gangs and also make a message of territory. The negative image of the graffiti on the public place leave emotional distress for the people espically if it is near there home.

After all the crises that graffiti made in most of cities Archaeologist has invented a solution for the graffiti problem by making a graffiti- B-gone. Who is this Archaeologist and what is the graffiti-B-gone? This Archeologist is Ms. Dean and the graffiti-B-gone is a cocktail of various organic oils derived from a number of raw materials, including corn bulls, soybeans, rice, and flax husks. Th.is mixture seems to vary in composition from batch to batch at manufacture- probably the result of seasonal availability of the raw ingredients. The oils from which the product is made, especially flax seed (linseed oil), have a well-known tendency to darken drastically on exposure to air and light. The chemistry of these materials also supports th.is known visual changes in appearance. This is of concern as any residue of the product remaining on a rock surface, could result in a darkening and staining of the rock as the residue alters. The archeologist has conducted an experiment to see the effect of the Graffiti-B-gone on different type of walls and made the experiment on 4 basic way: 1 sample was sent to the getty conversation to be tested , 2 the product was tested on the site , 3 outdoor weathering test, 4 outdoor weathering test was conducted on a sample of sandstone material. Test one: A sample was sent to l'v1ichael Schilling, Conservation Scientist, Getty Conservation Institute (GCI), with information about its potential use and asking for his comments on its composition, potential problems - both immediate and long term - with regard to its use in contex1 with rock images, and any other observations he might care to make. This work was carried out using standard wet chemistry techniques and gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy.Test two : The area at South Mountain Park, Phoenix, previously treated with Graffiti-S-Cone was examined by conservator J. Claire Dean, Dean & Associates Conservation Services, Portland, Oregon, to ascertain if there was any residue of the product remaining iu previously cleaned areas, if there was any visible impact on the previously cleaned area that might be coru1ected to the use of the product, and to test the application of the product under fi eld conditions. Tests included the use of pH indicating papers and visual examination. Test three: The area at South Mountain Park, Phoenix, previously treated witli Graffiti-S-Cone was examined by conservator J. Claire Dean, Dean & Associates Conservation Services, Portland, Oregon, to ascertain if there was any residue of the product remaining in previously cleaned areas, if there was any visible impact on the previously cleaned area that might be coru1ected to the use of the product, and to test the application of the product under fi eld conditions. Tests included the use of pH indicating papers and visual examination. Test 4 : A second informal testing was done by applying Graffiti-B-Gone - as instructed by the manufacturer- to a sample of pale yellow sandstone from southeastern Colorado. The sandstone was then subjected to the same outdoor weathering as above in Test 3. The result of experiment 1 was The samples tested both at the Getty Conservation Institute and in the field are markedly acidic (actual pH values seem to vary from batch to batch of product). Its acidic suggests that its use on certain carboniferous or calcareous rocks may not be appropriate as it could cause part of the matrix of the rock to be dissolved out, leaving the resulting structure weak. If acidified by the addition of a small amount of dilute hydrochloric acid, a very dark brown precipitate can be formed from the product. This raised a question regarding what might happen if a residue of the product remained on a site after use, and subsequently, the treated area was subjected to acid rain - something common in urban areas - with moderate to heavy annual rainfall. 1l1e indication is that there is a possibility that such a precipitate could separate out iu-s:tu on the treated surface, leaving a dark, material behind. This suggestion ha s not been substantiated and is purely hypothetical at this time. Although the application of the vandalism materials themselves vvill have eliminated any of the rock art areas for the use of existing dating techniques, the organic composition of Graffiti-B-Cone will definitely disqualify any location to which it has been applied. It must be remembered that any over-application of the product, will also contaminate nearby areas where no vandalism had taken place, as would areas where rinse water may have accidentally nil and its location not documented. And the result for 2 was A change in pH and surface appearance,·aud the lingering odor left after application of the product 4 suggests that a residue does remain immediately after application following the manufacturer's instructions. However, the fact that no residue could be detected on the area previously cleaned iu 1995 with Graffiti-B-Gone (almost exactly one year before is a new test application), indicates that the initial residue appears to break down.n naturally, preSl~bly due to the impact of weather and time. In the case of Phoenix, Arizona, the weather is extreme in that the site receives much direct sun and experiences very high temperatures for much of the year. Result 3 After the initial application, a darkened area remained in the spot where Graffiti-B-Gone had been applied. There was also a strong, lingering odor the product. It took a total of 5 months of weathering during a very wet and freezing winter in Portland, for the area of darkening to visually disappear. Reduction of the staining of the rock surface seemed to take longer than observed in the Phoenix test areas. Result 4 was This type of rock is extremely porous and on applying the Graffiti-B-Gone it was readily taken up by the stone which drew it into its fabric, leaving little on the surface of the rock, suggesting that the product had become introduced relatively deeply into the stone structure.

The conclusion for this topic is that the graffiti is crime that ruin the cities and also it is the language of the gangs to communicate with each other. however, it can be removed from the murals by the Graffiti-B-gone.