Pmalek’s Blog

…the answer may not be as easy as we think.

While driving around the south side of Chicago taking pictures of an form of graffiti was a great experience, it still didn’t answer this question. We came across beautiful murals that talked about the community and offered word of empowerment and motivation. They were mainly under bridges, and some even had notes from the artist (See below). This type of graffiti provides a clear answer: it does unite, empower and strengthen the community.

We also discovered graffiti being used as an advertising tool. If we categorized graffiti as a form of alternative media then wouldn’t using it as an advertising tool contradict its value? A tattoo parlor did not think so:

On the other hand, I think that if it a local shop (such as this one) whose money is pumped back into the local community, it is not as hypocritical as it seems. But there is a thin line being walked here because if  larger multi-billion dollar companies attempt to use graffiti to reach target publics and as an advertising tool then it would likely lose its value as an alternative form of media.

But going back to the question about whether or not graffiti united a community, my answer would have to be that it depends on the type of graffiti. Simple tags that no one but the artist understands do not bring a community together. Violent pictures that may degrade human beings or send off a negative message will not provide a community with the energy and motivation that it needs to survive through everyday hardships. Below are examples of graffiti works that I came across. Some of them unite and empower a community while others fall short. Can you spot which is which?

I interviewed Simon Malek, who is a property manager for Zifkin Realty. This company manages buildings and shopping centers all over Illinois. Simon manages buildings and shopping centers in the city as well as the suburbs. I asked Simon about the actions that he takes if and when someone does graffiti on one of his buildings. He said that he almost immediately has it removed.

Simon said that the best method was to pressure wash the paint. It is steaming hot water that is deposited on a wall with high pressure. He explained that a big part of this job is to be aware of exactly when the graffiti happens on the properties because this method of removal must be done within the first 48 hours of the grafitti’s life. Pressure washing does not work as well after 48 hours because, by then, the paint seeps into the brick. The pictures below show what a wall will look like after it has been presure washed. The picture with the orange paint is an example of paint that could not be removed because it was there longer than 48 hours.

After learning about the process that goes into erasing graffiti, I asked Simon why he was so dedicated to removing it. He stated that it’s all about the value of a building. He asked me, “Would you buy a car that has paint splattered all over it?” He added that while some of the murals are nice and do not bother him other forms are just large scribbles that greatly devalue the property.  Either way, the graffiti has to go when he sees it. Any building that has Zifkin Realty’s name on it is held to certain standards that the company has set for itself and the tenants. A part of it also has to do with the “brocken window” concept. I want to add that Simon mentioned that Zikin Realty is not under contract to remove graffiti from its buildings. But again, the company believes that happy tenants (such as Noodles and Company, Dollar stores, Penera, Staples, etc) will likely open another branch in another Zikin Realty shopping center if they are happy with its services.

I asked Simon about the costs on average to remove the paint, and he stated that it is a minimum of $450. However, Zifkin Realty as well as many other building owners in the city are grateful for Mayor Daley’s Graffiti Blasters. The Graffiti Blasters program started in 1993 and is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year. If any grafitti takes place on a building in the city, building owners can simply call 3-1-1 and request the Blaster’s services. One of their 13 trucks will come out and pressure wash the wall at no cost. On their website it states, “No community in Chicago has to tolerate graffiti. Please join us in eliminating graffiti and making this an even more beautiful city.”

Click here to view photos of graffiti documented around the City of Chicago.

Throughout the semester, we have studied topics from punk culture, to collective actions, to culture  jamming, to graffiti. Looking back at these topics, I see that they are all unique and special in their own way; however, they all do have one thing in common: they break away from the norms and trends of society and tell it to go F*** itself (this may be in a direct way as in punk culture or in an indirect way as in culture jamming).

In the culture jamming exercise that we did in class, for example, we took an everyday symbol that is accepted and endorsed by society and slightly tweeked it to send a much more meaningful message. I never really thought about this until we went out there and looked for symbols to change— once we did that, everything that I looked at automatically changed in my mind. “Beck’s” became “Brokes” and “Bank of America” became “Scum of America” (and rightfully because society trusted those guys and now we are at 8 percent unemployment). Collective action is another clear way to tell present day society that its norms are wrong. This was the case in the WTO protest and, to a lesser degree, in the current anti-walmart efforts. Out of all of these forms, we know that Punk culture says F-U the loudest.

From the examples above we see that all of these separate forms of alternative media (or culture) have at the very least this one thing in common. I question how far society will go to fight these alternatives forms back. In some ways it has by ridiculing them, ignoring them, or labeling the members of this group as “odd and unproductive.” It has even brought legality into it. Cops often arrest punk rockers for disturbing the peace. And now, society has found a way to target and stop graffiti artists. My group and I are taking a closer look at graffiti around Chicago for our final project. Our central focus is to determine weather graffiti unites a community or damages it.

According to the Police Chief of Watsonville, California, it damages and splits up a community. That is why they have found new technology that informs police enforcement of the act the moment the paint hits the wall. NPR reported about this new technology on April 8, 2009. The police chief could not give much details about the system so that the artists (or “vandalizers”) would not be able to find a way around it. He stated that it is a shame because the art and expression of someone else is at the expense of building owners. He admitted that the murals were beautiful but did not think it was okay for them to be put anywhere the artists sees fit. They were able to arrest dozens of artists within the first hour of the system’s activation.

What I have learned from this class is that soceity needs these alternative forms to continously challange it so that it progresses. Martin Luther King’s efforts were a form of alternative action against soceity’s popular opinion, Enviromentalists’ work to englighten and change the ways of the world are a form of alternative action. Both of these efforts incorporated alternative media and relied on those individuals who were not afraid to tell soceity and its ways to go F-itself because it was/is wrong.

Individuality makes the rising of alternative media and subcultures inevitable.  They are needed and valuable. No matter how popular opinion views them, it should realize that they way things are today would not be this way if it were not because of individuals participating in the alernative process. They have caused a catalyst affect.

I still do not fully understand open source software. Most highly debated issues are usually quite complicated. I understand that the debate is over whether or not progrms should be copyrighted or patenened which would restrict users from copying, modifying or sharing the software for free. While I understand and mostly support the open source movement, there is one problem that I noted in class: the risk element that goes into making all software available to everyone.

As I said in class, if MIT students can hack into a state’s subway system and allow free access to all passengers then what is to stop those who are are geniuses with computers from hacking into open source programs and taking advantage of the less computer adequette people like myself? So let’s say I find a great program that allows me to modify photos. It would be similiar to IPhoto which is available on Macs. If this program had already been hacked into and motified and I allow it access to my computer, then what will protect my computer from getting viruses and crashing? I would probably have to go through several computers in one year or not download anything. It would be a constant fear that I would have to live under everytime I press the “allow” button.

Some people may argue: “No problem, just get good virus protection software.” Under an open source system, even virus protection software would have to be free…which means that could be hacked into…which means hackers will figure out how to beat it. So it logicallt follows, then, that anti-virus software would have to be fully protected under copyright laws.

I don’t expect to come to a solution about this issue. I think the answer to whether or not some software should be free should be based on a case-by-case basis. But it is important to remember that we live in a competitive capitalistic damanding society. And as long as people keep buying Apple products, the support for licensing will continue to grow–whether or not users buy the products with that intention.

Peanut Butter Jelly Time to the Dancing Baby to ‘Leave Britnney Alone’ to David Goes to the Dentist– these videos are perhaps the best things to bring up in a conversation when we have reached that point of awkward silence. “Hey did you see that clip of that kid who was all drugged up from the dentist!!?? It was so cute…” I have done this at least a handful of times in my life, and it usually has saved the conversation. So I think we would all agree that memes, in a sense, are a blessing. They entertain us, give us something new to talk about and laugh about and it some ways it helps us to form a connection with that person behind the camera.

But at some point, I think that we lost the concept. The meme that used to last for weeks, being passed along and discussed throughout the world now lasts no longer than a day. They come and go, much of them not even truly appreciated for the comedy or message that they bring forth. For example, when Former President Bush had a news conference in Iraq and had a shoe hurled at him by a journalist, all social networks were laughing about it. The fact that he could dodge a shoe so quickly and then laugh about it was quite entertaining. Less than 3 days later, it was old news. Rocketboom explains that it was the shortest yet most widely spread memes throughout the world. I suppose my complaint is that, as a meme, it should have been more than just a hilarious clip. It should have sparked even more debate, consideration and reevaluation of how the Iraqis truly feel about U.S. presence. Fox news still reports that the Iraqis are glad that we got rid of their brutal leader (and replaced him with what?). I think a Christian Exodus, religious groups killing and threatening each other, a curfew and no stability for schools and normal life to function is far worse than the dictatorship that Hussein bestowed. Obviously, I think that he had to go but the U.S. should have approached it in a much different manner. At least more organized for crying out loud! My point is that this meme should have sparked more conversations about the overall matter.

Will memes survive for year to come? I think they mostly likely will but will they be as valued, considered, evaluated, discussed, etc? That I am not so sure about–unless the girl is wearing booty shorts and a tight shirt!

Watching “This is what Democracy Looks Like” made  me wish I was a part of such a historic event. I found myself getting goosbumps and shivers while watching the documentary. I don’t know if that was brought about by watching innocent human beings getting their gas masks ripped off and sprayed with tear gas, or if it was because I was touched to see so many unique people forming a collective action.

I was shocked to see how mistreated these individuals were by the police and media. The media portrayed them as deviants rather than representatives of human rights. I can understand why the police may have taken action– 50,000 people could be very intimidating. And I am sure that some people did provoke them (since it was such an emotional and revolutionary situation). But the level that they took it to shocked me.  I could not believe that the mayor made it illegal to buy or sell gas masks in the city! How in the world did he get away with that? I am surprised that the federal government did get more involved in this situation– though they may have made it worse. One quote that affected me was said by one of the women being interviewed, it was along these lines: they had a blue print of how to wage war against their own people. The footage exemplified this phrase.

This protest reminds me of modern day anti-Walmart activists. When they state their arguments against Walmart, they often hear, “so what, it’s a business” or “They have done a good job cutting their costs.” These responses are irritating enough to make steam blow out of the ears of anti-Walmart activists. I know because I am one of them.  Since when did it become okay to walk all over human dignity? Even worse, when did people become oblivious enough to not notice that something is morally wrong? I first started looking further into Walmart’s operations when I was in highschool, and I was in awe of how much they get away with. I mean, come on people, there is a reason why their products are incredibly cheap– and it is not a good reason. From their international sweatshops to their national anti-union stances, they exemplify a company that has cut all of its overhead costs to the point where they degrade their employees.

The protesters in Seattle were certainly not alike. Some were there for environmental reasons, others for labor reasons, some for animal rights and others for w omen’s rights. It is the same with those who protest Walmart. They all have different reasons as to why they do not support Walmart, and they know that they are united by their opposition. Robert Greenwald, in his documentary, “The High Cost of Low Price,” interviews various individuals with different oppositions to Walmart. He has footage from an overseas sweatshop where workers are forced to live in unsafe dormitories and still pay rent.

While the protests against Walmart have not been as drastic as the one against the WTO, I hope that one day we could stand up against them once and for all. I hope the people can form a collective action and get the world’s attention like the individuals at the WTO protests did. Maybe then leaders would act, like they did at the WTO conferences, and stand up against what they know is wrong.

There was a witty South Park Walmart episode a while back. I tried to find it on YouTube. I could not seem to find it but I wanted to mention it because they make a really good point in it: We, the consumers who keep on going back, are the heart of Walmart. We keep it alive and pumping by putting a blind eye to their wrong doings and not holding them accountable for there faults. And if that is not enough to convince you, just look at all the tax breaks they get from our government. (What really led us to this recession?).

I never really understood punk culture, let alone appreciated it. In highschool, the punks were generally the “rebel” teens that hated their parents, their school and only talked to certain people– they were kindof a mix of punk and emo I guess. To be honest, it annoyed me. All I could think about was that there are people across the world who wake up every morning not sure if they will live through the day because of all the violence and war in their country or children who can’t go to school because they don’t have shoes to wear. The more I thought about this kind of stuff, the angrier I got at the so-called punks at my school. I thought “was their life really that bad?” I mean they had a warm home to sleep in, allowance to buy their ripped clothes and t-shirts that proclaimed they hated the system (shirts that they spent a fair amount of money on the likely contributed to the system that they were denouncing) and teachers around them that actually cared. Maybe its because both of my parent’s lived through the war in Lebanon and struggled everyday and had to give up so much just to survive. I guess it puts things into perspective for me.

From my experience with them in Elk Grove High School, I may have generalized the entire punk subculture . I never really understood what brought about their subculture, and why it was brought out. But maybe they had it wrong too. Maybe they didn’t really understand what being punk was really about at its core. In fact, before I saw the movie “American Hardcore” and read Dylan Clark’s piece, I really did not know significant information about the punk subculture; I actually thought it just started in my generation. The movie opened up my eyes to the roots of punk culture. Its foundation is actually quite admirable. The reasons they wanted to break away and the things that they actually wanted to break away from in the 80s were probably things that I would not have wanted to be a part of either. The more the movie went on, however, the more violent the scene got. At one point a man being interviewed said something along the lines of he was into “kicking the shit” out of someone, rape, peeing on a girls face because she was passed out– he said, “so what, I don’t give a fuck…”

That was the point in the movie that really turned me off. Although I understood that they were trying to break away from the mainstream, I think a line was crossed with these beliefs–were they trying to differentiate themselves from what they believed was wrong or were they just trying to do whatever was the opposite of the culture that they did not like? I mean let’s think about it. Didn’t the subculture flourish because of its opposition to the political endeavors of the U.S.? Didn’t the punks hate Reagan because of the Vietnam war, where thousands of soldiers and civilians were dieing due to violence? So why did they turn to violence to differentiate themselves from a violent cause? Maybe I am rambling…but I hope this makes sense because I really do want to understand how and when and why degrading the human body became cool for this subculture. Maybe this is what caused its initial demise. If all other arguments against the punk subculture failed, one that could not be denied probably came from the doctors who told them that beating the crap out of each other on a consistent basis was eventually going to catch up to them.

But let me get to the point here: Clark certianly puts it into perspective. I completely agree with him: the death of punk resulted in it rising to its greater and more admirable meaning. He writes:

“Perhaps that is one of the great secrets of subcultural history: punk faked its own
death. Gone was the hair, gone was the boutique clothing, gone was negative rebellion
(whatever they do, we’ll do the opposite). Gone was the name. Maybe it had to die, so as

to collect its own life insurance. When punk was pronounced dead it bequeathed to its

successors – to itself – a new subcultural discourse….Decentralized,anti-hierarchical, mobile, and invisible, punk has become a
loose assemblage of guerrilla militias. It cannot be owned, it cannot be sold. It upholds
the principles of anarchism, yet is has no ideology. It is called punk, yet it has no name.”

Will punk remain nameless for years to come? Or will the subculture rise and fall again, where at certain points in the future it will be “in style” and radicalized and in other parts it will be invisible yet present. In other words, does punk, like cats, have 9 lives? Or is this the first and last time that will die and rise again? I believe the answers could only be found with time.

For now, however, there are people such as the “Punk Patriot” standing up to common idealogies and making the noise that needs to be heard. While he argues against a president that I support and admire, he makes good points that are worth thinking about. “He is such a punk.”

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