Graffiti Research Lab, the movie
Grab your LED throwies and your laser tagging units, comrades, and join the revolution. Today on Boing Boing tv, a sneak peek at a new documentary film on the subversive public art collective known as Graffiti Research Lab, who develop and distribute "open source technologies for urban communication." The voices you'll hear in today's episode -- GRL founders James Powderly and Evan Roth.
From their statement, redacted by the "U.S. Dept. of Homeland Graffiti"...
Part two of today's episode documents GRL's hijinks at Maker Faire 2007. That event's 2008 edition is coming up next week.From their origins in
thetrashroom of a non-profit in Manhattanto their emergence astheinstigatorsof an international art movement,Graffiti Research Lab: The Complete First Season documents the adventures of an architect and an engineer who quit theirdayjobs todevelop high-tech tools for the art underground. The film follows the GRL and their network of graffiti artist collaborators (and commercial imitators) across four continents as they write on skyscrapers with lasers,mockadvertisers with homemade tools, get in trouble withThe Department of Homeland Securityand make activism fun again. Primarily using video footage from point-and-shoot digital cameras (“The Pocket School”) and found-content on the web, the movie’s visual style draws as much from the art of the power point presentation and viral media as conventional documentary cinema.Narrated by GRL co-founders, Roth and Powderly, The Complete First Season makes a humorous
and insightfulargument forfree speech in public, open source in pop culture, the hacker spirit ingraffiti and notasking for permission in general.The filmwas premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2008.Available 24/7 on The Pirate Bay.
GRL was mistakenly credited with the Boston Mooninite LED Terror Freakout; while their work no doubt inspired the street marketing team responsible for the Aqua Teen Hunger Force debacle, Powderly told Boing Boing the day it happened that GRL was not involved.
Link to more info about the DVD and where you can download a torrent -- or, see it at the premiere, May 4, at New York's MOMA.
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The two artists from Boston who worked under the Comedy contract for ATHF picked up a technique that many of us had played with thanks to videos put out by GRL. The Glitch in Boston and many other art teams around the world have picked up great tools and techniques from GRL....good to see a documentary coming soon.
Quite stupid. Graffiti is writing on things you don't have permission to write on, to satisfy your own hollow ego. Writing on the GRL bus is not a simulation of that because permission was given. These "pranksters" "hacking urban spaces"(?) serve no utility or purpose besides inflating their own ego and furthering their own spurious and pointless quasi-political agenda.
@Chevlis:
Your alignment: Lawful Neutral
hmmm i have to agree with the sentiment of #2.
the idea that this contains any of the sincere and authentic authority-challenging that goes on in serious graffiti is a bit sad.
it can be argued that their self-publicity subverts the capitalist tools of corporate america but doesn't their friendship with all sorts of institutional bodies (i would include MOMA and eyebeam) pretty much contradict that?
essentially this kind of work exists in authoritarian societies (like america has become) so that the authorities can say: "no you're wrong, we *do* allow dissent, look at what we let GRL get away with!"
"Graffiti is writing on things you don't have permission to write on..."
Couldn't you argue that technology is allowing "pranksters" to be more law abiding citizens, particularly with laser tagging! Is laser tagging writing? And what if I did shadow puppetry on your house from across the street -- maybe you'd accept my shadow bunnies but call the cops if I shadowed a gun.
Technology is pushing graffiti to a new place. Open, open, open-source me -- laser me to the moon and back.
Oh yawn it's the GRL.
#5: I think it's pretty clear that the GRL is encouraging more people to do traditional graffiti. I do love good seeing cool art on the street, but most of it is crappy tagging that forces someone else to clean up or pay for. The political argument is totally hollow as most of what I see are badly written names. Only a couple are worth even looking at.
Oh sure, the laser writing is open-source, but with a high price tag and a hefty bit of tech to learn isn't this an exclusive club for kids who want to pretend to be vandals without the nasty aftertaste? Is it really that much more open-source than a black marker with a fat tip?
What the mooninite guys did wasn't all that amazing in any case, it was the stupid reaction that was notable; but does anyone have an actual source that GRL in any way inspired the Mooninite guys?
Or is this just a further example of their claim to have invented the LED?