PNG

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Pacific Northwest Graffiti - Get Out and Get Up! and don't beef with your partners in revolution about me : Get together and change the world. Peace... www.myspace.com/png view more pictures
Interests:
Graffiti
Community
Revolution
Rebellion
Artistic Freedom
Liberation
Music:
Anything created or produced by graffiti writers: Hip-Hop, R&B, Trance, House, Trip-Hop, Rock, etc...
Movies:
Style Wars
Wild Style
Pure Hate
Lady in Red
La Haine
Grovt Skadeverk
Terror Fabulous
Reality Show
Lady in Red
Steel Injection
Hamburg Metall
V for Vendetta
Books:
Cryptonomicon (Neal Stephenson)
On the Road (Jack Karouac)
Nymphomation (Jeff Noon)
Heroes:
Diffie Witfield (crypto genius)
EFF
Banksy
Information:
Status:
Hometown:
Body type:
Religion:
Zodiac Sign:
Occupation: Engaged
Seattle, wa
fucking tall
Other
Graffiti Artist
Revolution Facilitator
Ladytron - Destroy Everything You Touch:
Saturday: 2006.12.02

OK, I'm sure some of you know I'm a huge computer geek. That's why I made Pacific Northwest Graffiti in the first place. I'm a web nut. Anyhow, I just signed up for Second Life and It's pretty cool:

http://www.secondlife.com/

So, "Why is this Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game cool anyway. It's just another shoddy MMORPG, right?"

Well, here's the kicker. I setup a Pacific Northwest Graffiti user group in the game.

One of the coolest things about the game is that you can make things. If you can do 3D graphic stuff or write code, you can create 3d objects and/or write scripts that will make them behave in certain ways. For instance, you can create a spray paint canister that sprays paint on things in the world: Like the one here .

I'm saving up my L$50 a week game allowance (you get for using a free account) so I can buy some of these. Once I get enough of them, I'm going to give them to users in our group and we are going to go paint the friggin virtual universe. If I get enough people, it would be cool to get some land and make a writer's paradise. I can do basic 3D models and I'm learning the scripting language (since I code for a living it shouldn't take too long) so maybe I'll make my own spray cans and markers before I have to buy them.

My second life identity: Adam Starbrook (I know, silly name)

Look me up and send me a message. If you are an active user of the Pacific Northwest Graffiti forum, I'll let you into the PNG user group for free (I'm charging other people L$25--translates to US$0.25--to join so I can cut out the riff-raff)

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HOW MANY WRITERS HIT THIS ONE SET OF SMALL WINDOWS? How many of us are there? I'm not talking about starting a big gang or anything, but there are enough of us that we could get together and make shit happen. Free walls, more appreciation, more respect. All we gotta do is realize that we don't have to toy around and be alone when we need support. We do have friends who respect us and look out for our asses when we need it. I don't know a whole lot about how the laws work but I've heard a cop has to tell you that he is a cop in a situation like that, or it would be considered entrapment. Entrapment, for those of you who don't know, is one of the many wonderful tools, which throws cases out of courtrooms. I am NOT a cop. This site is in no way associated with any Police force, the FBI, CIA, NSA, DARPA, NASA, KGB, BBC, ABC, NBC or anything resebling any of those groups. We are local artists looking to make a community out of graffiti (as an expression of art). The next time some poor, dumb kid gets picked up by the police, I don't want all the Seattle writers to just say, "oh, well. Tough shit. Not my ass." I would hope we could have enough respect for eachother to take it to the streets and, if not go as far as holding a protest march, screaming "Graffiti is Art! Long live Freedom of Speech! Make the Walls Free!" and so on, at least just spread the word that a big brotherhood of artist doesn't agree. And together, we have some pretty big numbers. Can you dig it?
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Back in May 2005, I sent this email to City Council Member, Larry Gossett c.c. to the Stranger and the Seattle Weekly. I suggest you all send something similar:

to: [email protected]
cc: [email protected]
cc: [email protected]
re: Martin Luther King County Citizen Concerns

Hello, I just recieved your letter and I would like to present some ideas to you that fall outside the scope of your survey.

First let me say that I greatly appreciate your letter and this opportunity to contact you. I have written a letter regarding graffiti in Seattle, which I think might interest you. Please be aware that I do not intend this letter to imply that you are unaware of the current state of our city or that you have personally made any improper judgements thus far. If you decide that you want to share this with any of your collegues, I would greatly appreciate it. I have a printable Microsoft Word version of this letter online:

http://png.shadowpuppet.net/txt/LetterToCityCouncil.doc

Allow me to tell you a story about an artistic sixteen-year-old boy, who goes by the moniker A². At school, his friends call him Jack, as per his socially accepted identity. Jack is a talented student, with above average grades and a brilliant, although rebellious, disposition. Outside of school, his friends know him by the nickname he tags all over the city—”a square with a capitol 'A' inside. Like his friends, A² used to spray-paint graffiti on legal walls, until the walls were removed. Now he expresses himself on the sides of businesses, schools, and anywhere else he thinks he can get away with it. What A² doesn't know is that the Seattle Police have been recording his activities. Now that he's achieved a high enough quota in damage dollars, the police wake up his mother, early one morning, to take her son Jack to jail. In Juvenile Hall, Jack does not exist. A² will learn how to steal, deal, beat and kill. This is where the artistic young boy becomes a bitter, hateful grown man. This is where the war on graffiti goes wrong.

It is a social crime to punish citizens for an act, which can be done legally, without providing the legal alternative.

Why would a sixteen-year-old kid hang out in a needle-infested, excrement-filled alley, committing crimes for which the punishment is severe, if safe, legal, clean alternatives exist? Why would a kid risk getting caught doing something illegally that he could do legally? The thrill of rebellion is a lure but graffiti, even in its legal form, is rebellious in nature. If the city would listen to the needs of graffiti artists, it might discover that graffiti artists can be nurtured toward a productive, healthy, socially beneficial career. The city may feel that the artists don't deserve to have their needs considered because public graffiti is disrespectful, but respect is a two way road. If the myth of Pygmalion has any truth, people take on the roles they are given. Children become villains if they are already treated like villains.

Graffiti is everywhere. Taking many forms, from paint to ink and stickers to stencils, it rears its face on buildings, signs, cars, trains, sidewalks and windows. Coming across a legal wall is rare and usually takes much effort and planning. Legal walls provide safety, security, and respect to artists—and free, self-sustained cultural artwork within the city. With the crackdown getting stronger, and graffiti becoming more popular as a means of expression, legal walls are becoming more necessary and yet more scarce.

Questions of artistic validity arise around graffiti culture. Are tags, painted over and over really art? It is undeniable that art cannot be defined in terms of beauty, legality, location or form. Art does not have these boundaries. Graffiti, whether art or not, can be broken up into many groups. Stickers and stencils, gang related and territorial vandalism, graffiti that is meant to display climbing skills or the brazenness of an artist are all types of graffiti that are not affected by the advent or closure of legal walls. However, as part of hip-hop culture, many graffiti artists would rather paint free of persecution, in an open environment, where they can take real credit for their amazing work.

Keep America Beautiful, Inc. claims, "With a legal wall, governments or businesses essentially sponsor graffiti in an effort to rid a community of graffiti. This sends a mixed message" (www.graffitihurts.org). Their argument is logical, if the intention behind a legal wall is to rid the community of graffiti. However, the argument is flawed if the reason for a legal wall is instead to harness the artistic value and embrace the needs of a subculture. In Hornsby Shire, Australia, legal mural walls are the backbone of the town's policy. It's a progressive step, which recognizes the value of graffiti as self expression in the urban environment. The town's deputy mayor, who instigated this approach wanted â€,,to develop a strategy that addressed the needs of young people in a mutually beneficial relationship with the wider community, while recognizing that they are extensive users of public space (Graffiti the Legal Way: Hills Shire Times. April 23, 2002).

Graffiti is a healthy outlet via which young minds can express themselves, while pulling kids away from more dangerous and destructive acts; that is, as long as these young minds have a legal and accessible way to express themselves. As it is, legal walls are disappearing instead of growing in number. Perhaps the city can try a new approach: join the welcoming committee instead of the lockup committee; find productive activities for graffiti artists who do not think of themselves as criminals but revolutionaries; and lastly, take some of the massive blank walls in the city and allow them to become art. Why pay so much money to rub out such a vibrant and talented subculture, which, when displayed purposefully, adds to the beauty and appeal of our city? Why spend so much energy on negative reinforcement, which has been proven to be ineffective?

One of our greatest leaders once spoke of self-expression, and though he may not have been speaking of graffiti, his words relate to it in the most profound way: "Above all, we are coming to understand that the arts incarnate the creativity of a free people. When the creative impulse cannot flourish, when it cannot freely select its methods and objects, when it is deprived of spontaneity, then society severs the root of art. If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him." (John Fitzgerald Kennedy)

"we were born of risen apes, not fallen angels, and the apes were armed killers besides. And so what shall we wonder at? Our murders and massacres and missiles, and our irreconcilable regiments? Or our treaties whatever they may be worth; our symphonies however seldom they may be played; our peaceful acres, however frequently they may be converted into battlefields; our dreams however rarely they may be accomplished. The miracle of man is not how far he has sunk but how magnificently he has risen."
- Robert Ardrey
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