ABSTRACT
Evan Roth and James Powderly created the Graffiti Research Lab (GRL) in New York City in 2005. They had two specific goals in mind: to create open-source tools for traditional graffitists—tools that would lead to new graffiti forms and methods—and to initiate the reconsideration of graffiti amongst urban populations. Graffiti—which began appearing in its modern-day form in major cities in the late 1960s—was, and still is, viewed as vandalism by much of the public and disregarded as a valid form of art or self-expression. However, advertising, which began dominating urban environments at this same historical moment, remains legal and generally accepted. GRL developed low-tech, user-friendly forms of graffiti technology to force a reevaluation of the relationship between established systems, like advertising, and graffiti. GRL assisted graffitists in “getting up” and avoiding arrest and, through widely sharing these alternative forms of graffiti, encouraged greater public participation and understanding of the practice.]
