This reading Latour (Reassembling the Social) is tough. It’s not that the ideas are particularly tough; they’re not, at least not so far. It’s that I read a line or paragraph, and it sets me to thinking, and thinking, and thinking . . . so I put the Latour down and think and think some more. It takes time to run his stuff through (several decades of) my own accumulated thoughts, which include the graffiti thoughts I’ve been having for the past few years.
And it’s graffiti I really want to understand, not so much Latour. I’m reading him so I can better read graffiti.
Groups
On to groups. I talk of graffiti culture as though there is such a thing. There is graffiti itself, on the walls, in photos, in books and on the web. And there are the people who make the graffiti, take the photos, put them in books, and on the web. And others besides, those who look at the graffiti and the photos.
Sometimes when I talk of graffiti culture, I mean to indicate a group of people. And that, groups, is Latour’s first topic after the introduction. So, p. 29:
To sum up, whereas for sociologists the first problem seems to settle on one privileged grouping, our most common experience, if we are faithful to it, tells us that there are lots of contradictory group formations, group enrollment—activity to which social scientists are obviously crucial contributors. The choice is thus clear: either we follow social scientists and begin our travel by setting up at the start which kind of group and level of analysis we will focus on, or we follow the actors’ own ways and begin our travels by the traces left behind by their activity of forming and dismantling groups.
What’s interesting about graffiti is that the graffiti itself is a means through which and around which groups come into being. Considered as a group, or as an irritant or stimulus to group formation, the illegal nature of graffiti is crucial. Let’s follow it out.
Redefining
I’ve been going about this the wrong way—isn’t it always thus? The illegal nature of graffiti IS an issue, as is the FIDELITY of graffiti style to the NYC and Philly originals all over the world. And the two ARE linked. The question ISN’T so much: Why did graffiti persist despite its illegal nature.
Rather, the question IS more like: Under what circumstances will the illegal nature of an expressive practice tend to foster that practice? What does the existence and persistence of graffiti tell us about the world?
The fact that graffiti is illegal means that the state is going to impose costs on the activity. If graffiti is to persist in the face of those costs, then those costs to ‘the graffiti community’ must be lower than the benefits of graffiti, however those costs and benefits are counted up.
With these considerations in mind, let’s take another look. To begin with, we must note that graffiti started as the expressive practice of (mostly) minority young men, young men who were already somewhat alienated from mainstream America. Thus, the disapproval of mainstream America is not new to them and might even conceivably be rewarding to them if they settle on an Oppositional identity.
The Game of Graffiti
So, to define our game a bit: (1) The individual graffiti writer is one player in the graffiti game. (2) The state, as represented by the police and the justice system, is a third player. The state functions as a proxy for the whole of legitimate society. (3) Each writer ‘plays’ to what I believe sociologists call a ‘reference group’, the group of people which a given individual, such as a graffiti writer, considers to be his peers, his homies. This group will be fuzzy and fluid, but will include other graffiti writers, but also those among their immediate associates who may not themselves be writers. Considered as a collectivity, these reference groups are another player. Call it simply the graffiti community.
What are the rewards of graffiti writing, to the writers themselves? Fame and reputation within his reference group.
What are the costs? For the purposes of this informal discussion I’m going to ignore the costs the reference group can impose (for breaking the informal codes of graffiti writing) and concentrate on the costs imposed by the third player, the state.
First, the graffiti can be removed by the authorities thus costing the writer the effort expended in getting up PLUS the opportunity cost of that effort. However, if the graffiti stays up for a sufficient period of time, whatever that is, this may not be a cost at all. That is, the effort expended in getting up was not wasted, as the graffiti was up long enough to earn its increment of fame. The advent of photography further mitigated the cost of ‘buffing.’ If one’s work has been photographed, then it’s loss is not so high. Think of ‘getting up’ as analogous to counting coups. Once there is a photographic record, one can always prove that one got up in this or that spot and the removal of the graffiti thus does not negate the count.
Of course, the state can impose other costs as well. Informally, writers may get beaten-up by the police without, however, an arrest. The cost of the beating would depend on its severity and the resilience of the writer. Beyond that, the writer can be arrested, and, if convicted, can be assessed a fine and / or jail time. To exact these costs, of course, the police have to catch the writers and they have to be able to convict them. Neither of these is certain.
We know, in fact, that writers have been arrested, convicted, and sentenced to prison. I seem to have heard of at least one case where a writer got two years. I have no reason at all to believe that that’s the maximum sentence that’s been handed out but I do think that, on the whole, it’s on the high end.
We’ve also got to consider the possibility that an arrest and conviction may actually enhance a writer’s standing within the graffiti community, that is, within a writer’s reference group. Here I’m thinking of a scene from Goodfellas, which, of course, was not about graffiti at all. It was about the mafia. The central character, Henry Hill, gains in stature after his first arrest because he comported himself properly. I’d imagine things work out in a similar fashion in the graffiti world.
Which takes us back to where we began, with alienated young men. None of this is possible unless society is divided. Graffiti thrives on/in the division.
The Piece, aka Masterpiece
The piece—especially elaborate graffiti involving a large surface area, complex design, and many colors—deserves special attention because its very existence presupposes the existence of a meaningful graffiti community. Yes, there is the historical progression from tagging to piecing but we must note that, in that process piecing would not have evolved if there hadn’t been a graffiti community ready to reward it. It’s not simply that, as a matter of developing technical and aesthetic skill, the writers had to do the simple stuff, tags and then throw-ups, before they could do the more sophisticated pieces. But also that that process brought into being a community of people ready and willing to reward the skill exhibited in piecing.
Piecing imposes costs on the writer: (1) There is the material cost of all the paint required. One must either pay for the paint or, more traditionally, “rack” it, that is, steal it. Racking by its nature imposes the cost of exposure to arrest. (2) The opportunity cost of the time it takes to paint the piece. This time also entails exposure to arrest. The reward, as always, is fame. There is also the intrinsic pleasure of doing the work, but I don’t know how effective this is as reward.
I thus take the emergence of piecing—between, say, 1973 and 1975—as evidence that something we can reasonably call ‘the graffiti community’ was taking shape. It is that community that rewarded the writers for the risks they took and the skill they exhibited in putting pieces on subway cars in New York City.
Stylistic Fidelity
Given all this, I think I now have a way to approach the question of stylistic fidelity. By that I mean that, when graffiti began to spread away from New York City and Philadelphia, many of the features of NYC and Philly styles went along with it and have been preserved. I’m particularly impressed by the fact that many of these features are preserved in Japanese graffiti. Given that 1) graffiti is based on letter-form writing and 2) that the Japanese writing system is radically different from that of America, it seems remarkable that Japanese graffiti nonetheless preserves many of the NYC/Philly features and makes extensive use of ‘romanji’ characters as well (that is, the Roman alphabet).
Why? Well, of course, graffiti spread through imitation and people would imitate they styles they saw, for example, in The Faith of Graffiti, Subway Art, Wild Style, and Style Wars. But I’m not sure mere imitation will account for this stylistic continuity and fidelity. I suspect, though I certainly cannot prove, that something else may be going on.
If styles drifted a great deal when graffiti spread from one place to another, that would, I suspect, tend to fracture ‘the graffiti community’ into many more smaller communities. Fame would thus be more localized. The preservation of stylistic continuity allows for a larger community in which fame can circulate.
Now, when I thus speak of a world-wide graffiti community, I don’t mean to imply that graffiti is one big happy family all over the world. Fact is, I don’t know quite what I mean, and so I may be totally wrong on this. But the general idea is simply that widespread stylistic fidelity facilitates the spread of fame, which is still pretty much the major reward that accrues to writers.
Stylistic fidelity may also reinforce the oppositional nature of graffiti. All over the world, graffiti is against IT, whatever the local or regional IT may be. Graffiti writers and followers all over the world are bonding with one another in opposition to THE EXISTING WORLD ORDER.
Caveat: The Graffiti Community
I’ve been talking about costs and rewards to individual writers. They’re only one of the three players I’ve identified. What about the other two, the graffiti community and the state? I think working out costs and rewards for the state is relatively straight-forward. Or, let us say, I can see how one would set out to do that.
But I’m not sure about the graffiti community, which, of course, includes the writers themselves. And this is the group whose existence I’m trying to understand.
One reason I’ve been led to postulate such a community as an entity above and beyond the writers is simply that people other than the writers do play roles. Not only do we have friends and associates of the writers, but also the photographers and film-makers who have been so important in graffiti culture.
We could, of course, identify these various role players and assess costs and rewards for them. And, I suppose that at some level that’s necessary. Perhaps even that that’s all there is.
But, if I’m treating the state as player, albeit an abstract and collective one, then I’m not sure I don’t have to do the same thing for ‘the graffiti community.’ But how does one assess the costs and rewards to this community, which lacks any administrative structure for keeping track of and responding to costs and rewards? What can this community do that earns it a reward, and what form does the reward take? Similarly, what can this community do that incurs a cost, and what form does that cost take?
Does it make sense, for example, to say that it gives fame to good writers and is rewarded in increments of cohesiveness? Whereas giving fame to poor writers depletes the stock of cohesiveness, as does withholding fame from good writers?
Story at 11.
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On stylistic fidelity, see Graffiti Mystery Theatre: Same Old Same Old. It’s about a motif found in both Jersey City and Osaka, Japan.
See also Graffiti, Signaling, Evolution, and Art.
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