I have never thought of graffiti as performative. Yet, all of these articles draw a link between the event of viewing and the event of doing graffiti. In “Ancient Graffiti in Context,” Baird and Taylor attempt to define graffiti based on its context. They argue that, when analyzing graffiti, we must look at its location, medium, message, and the cultural and political narrative of the time. However, they take this definition one step further by arguing that the act of graffiti can be seen as an event. Baird and Taylor state that if the act of writing is an event, then graffiti is an object. Inversely, if graffiti is an object, then the interpretation becomes and event again. The use of the term “event” draws on the notion of graffiti as a performative act.
Kellum in her essay, “Spectacle of the Street,” also connects graffiti to the act of preforming. She argues that, in Ancient Rome, the street served as a place of performance and spectacle. She emphasizes the public nature of the street by pointing to the shrines and altars on the street, as well as the games, and sites of intersection. Kellum uses graffiti to understand the street and its performative nature. She points to the graffiti used on street signs and the graffiti at intersections to wish good luck and well being. She also points to the interactive nature of graffiti. She argues that the street is a place where one observes and is observed. Thus, when someone interacts with graffiti (reading it aloud) it becomes a public spectacle.
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Another common theme seen throughout these articles is the notion of space and place. All of these articles talk about the different locations of graffiti. I have always thought of graffiti as an illicit act on subway cars or in alley ways. However, all these articles point to different places where there is graffiti. In the case of the Frood article, the place of the graffiti is crucial to understanding the graffiti. Frood uses the location of the graffiti in the Egyptian temples to define the temple graffiti. Initially Frood hypothesized that the graffiti on the outside of the temple for non-elites to have access to worship. However, she later learned that the outside was not actually that accessible, and therefore, this graffiti was actually for, and by, the temple personal and the priests. The graffiti showed images of the rituals and practices of the personal and priests, thus bringing the inside to the outside. Like the street, which Kellum, discusses, the temple walls were also a fluid boundary. I think I want to write my research paper on five pointz and gentrification of this area. This essay will look at the relationship between the art and the surrounding place.