When sites of construction are erected they generally communicate an area that is off limits to the common public. The most frequent indicator of a space of construction is the physical demarcations that usually involve plastic, orange barriers of various forms. These objects happen to be available to all online. One does not need to have any sort of official construction affiliation. Tangential questions arise such as: How did this color orange come into existence? If one orders some of these barricades and puts them on the sidewalk, is the same space created? However, relating back to perceived legitimate spaces of construction (meaning they have a sanctioned permit), especially inside urban arenas, one issue that arises is that of vandalism. The allure of these “off-limits” constructed environments opens up new spaces for artists, or anyone passing by, to leave their mark. This could involve pasting posters, tagging with spray paint, or defacing the property in some other way (drawing in cement, putting cones on top of cars). Is one form better than the others? More legal?
People etch stuff into wet cement all the time. These “people” – I have never seen “these people” I don’t know their ages, races, genders, much less, their intentions. Usually names are etched into sidewalks. I associate it with graffiti tagging. Yet I also somehow separate it because sidewalk etchings are not located on the sides of people’s houses or buildings, as many graffiti tags and throw-ups are. Sidewalks are under people’s feet. People can stomp on them and let their dogs use the restroom on them. Sidewalks are not at a standard eye level, and aren’t very noticeable to people driving by. There are not any chemicals, or color involved in mutilating wet cement – just a simple sharp object does the trick.
The debate about the actual artistic (and legal) quality of graffiti art is an ongoing discourse in communities. These seemingly political statements are often regarded as illegal in nature, as normally they are painted onto public or private properties. Additionally, these works are outside, where all can see, or are involuntarily forced to look at. These art forms are not housed inside walls that may in some way contextually alter the meaning of the piece There are open debates about what constitutes, or aesthetically defines, different types of graffiti. For instance, it may be more like a mural, or perhaps the artist obtained approval from the building owner – Do these characteristics change the overall reaction or attitude towards graffiti?
Graffiti artists are typically anonymous, unless one has the pleasure of being an insider in the tagging community in which identities are revealed. This anonymity allows for little interrogation of the perpetrator. No one can be held accountable for the works planted into our visual space. Further, there seems to be no consistent framework for determining who has the right disrupt ones visual space. If one hates looking at spray paint on a wall, whose problem is it?
These typically authorless acts that frequently center around sites of construction (but also relate to non-construction related anonymous urban art pieces) rupture the public/private divide. Someone’s private interests are shoved into view in public space and left there for all to do with what they wish. There seems to be an inherent desire to incriminate these artists. Make it illegal and hopefully they will go away. It seems troubling to try and determine how much harm they are causing (if any). Harm from whose perspective? Do these authors have rights? How illegal are these artistic, or arguably political, acts?
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One night my roommate and I found ourselves outside on our street. Orange barricades surrounded the street corners of the curbs, on both ends of our block. These plastic barriers came up to our wastes and awkwardly enclosed the rounded street corners where cement had just been laid. The word “PAGE” had already been pressed perfectly into the left side of the corner.
The fluorescent orange, temporary walls were not as heavy as we thought, though there must have been some sand in the bottom them. My roommate found a large screw in a small pile of scrap under a near tree. She scooted inside the fortification and I closed her in. If she bent down far enough, people driving by wouldn’t even see her. I hung out on the outside and smoked a cigarette, keeping watch. It’s not that I smoke cigarettes it just seemed appropriate. I felt so juvenile. I couldn’t decide if we were actually breaking the law. At the same time I felt a small thrill, and a tinge of apathy.
In the last thirty days only three vandalism cases have been reported in a ¼ mile radius of our house.
In 2006 there were 5,168 cases of Malicious Mischief reported in San Francisco. There were 368 juvenile offenses reported and 9.861 “other miscellaneous” offenses reported.
Vandalism most likely falls under the category “malicious mischief.”
Washington State Legislature defines Malicious Mischief as “physical damage” that can range from tampering with someone’s computer files to “any inscription, figure, or mark of any type on any public or private building or other structure or any real or personal property owned by any other person.”
Malicious Mischief can be constituted in varying degrees, depending on the financial amount of damage done to a property.
I lean over an orange barricade to check on my roommates’ progress. The loud scraping noises surely give her away, whether visible or not. A gentleman in a red sweater, walking a dog approached our area. I watch him approach and he stops on the opposite end of the encircled space.
“What are you doing?” he asks. Neither of us answer.
“Why are you doing that? We all have to look at it.” Neither of us speak.
“Are you enjoying yourself?”
My roommate responds: “Yes, I am enjoying myself.”
“You’re not children. You look like grown women. What’s wrong with you? I have to look at that for the next 20 years. Stop it.”
I felt like we had just been exposed. Perhaps our father had caught us sneaking out, or perhaps we had been caught stealing a piece of candy from a store. But this was just a gentleman, a citizen, and likely our neighbor. I thought, while standing silently, about the notions of public versus private space. I thought about engaging him in a conversation about aesthetic and whose sidewalk it really was. Did the orange barricades transform the space into a space belonging to the construction site – to the city? Why did this guy care so much anyway? And why did I feel so guilty that I couldn’t even speak to him?
Clearly the gentleman who approached us had certain ideas of what he thought was appropriate or in-appropriate for this space. He also seems to have a pre-conceived notion of what types of people commit these acts (ie: not 25 year old white women).
When my roommate finished etching the name of the Greek goddess of justice we walked away from the gentleman and the barricades. We circled the block attempting to have a conversation about the recent events. We did not head directly home, worried he may try and track where we were going. We returned minutes later to check on our work only to find it stamped out. The gentlemen had entered the barricaded area and drug his foot repeatedly over the goddess’s name. Now it looked like a huge black smudge. We discussed the effort the feat must have taken. We found the nearest heavy metal object and rewrote the original etching. Days later, after the barricades had been removed and the sun had slowly dried the cement, there remain two foul markings on the corner. One is a large dark smear in the concrete and the other spells out the name of a mythological figure.
