new layers: candle

Shown here: candle/south 16, November 29, 2006. Photo by C-Monster.

Just starting to put together the photos from my trip. So far, three new layers from the south wall of the Candle Building, including some fresh new work by Skewville, Mark Jenkins, and Celso. Also, if you look closely, you might catch some tags by Stay High 149. Thanks to C-Monster for the most recent flick!

A video tour of 11 Spring

The news about 11 Spring keeps rolling in! I was just in New York for a week, and happened to be staying within walking distance, so I was able to stop by a few times. Each trip was rewarded with something new, sometimes big (like Skewville’s amazing Grand Closing installation) and other times small (like Mark Jenkins’ almost invisible packing tape baby).

Meanwhile, Michael Natale over at GammaBlog has put together a really nice video about the building, using Flash to combine his own photos with others’ (including one of mine) for a sort of audiovisual guided tour, complete with narration and mood music. I’ve always wanted to build some kind of tool for telling stories, building linear narratives that weave through time and space, within the grafarc interface. Mike’s video proves that a guided tour can be quite compelling when done well! It’s also a great example of Creative Commons licensing and remix culture at its best.

Look for more updates and new walls in the coming months.

New location: the Candle Building, NYC

Shown here: candle/south 11, November 6, 2006. Photos by Nicholas Noyes.

At long last, Graffiti Archaeology hits New York! As I mentioned earlier, we’ve been covering the Candle Building (11 Spring Street) for a couple of years now. But the pace of change has picked up sharply in the past week thanks to our friends at Wooster Collective. The south wall now features fresh work by artists Michael De Feo, Above, Elbow-Toe, WK Interact, and The London Police. Earlier layers include the work of Judith Supine, Shepard Fairey, Empte Eyes, and more.

I’m happy to be able to show some different styles of artwork on the site. Graffiti Archaeology was originally inspired by the aerosol arts of San Francisco, but the idea is not bounded by style or location. Many thanks to the New York-based photographers who contributed to this montage: Nicholas Noyes, Sam Horine, Jake Dobkin, Luna Park, and guy_on_the_streets.

I’ll be in New York next week to get one more layer of shots. I’m already working on a montage of the much larger western wall of this building, but it will have to wait ’til I get back. Stay tuned.

Update: check Gothamist for the inside scoop on the Candle Building (literally!)

NYT article about 11 Spring, NYC

photo by James Estrin/The New York Times.

There’s an interesting article in the New York Times about the Candle Building, aka 11 Spring Street in NYC. Members of our Graffiti Archaeology group on Flickr have been documenting the changing street art on the outside of the building for a couple of years now (see the 11spring tag for examples.) It sounds like some big changes are coming. I’ll be heading back there again in November myself. Hope the art hasn’t been completely destroyed by then!

(via Wooster Collective).

Continue reading NYT article about 11 Spring, NYC…

new layers: harveys

Shown here: harveys 6, September 24, 2006. Piece by Apex.

Catching up on some long-running classics: the wall at Harvey’s in SoMa has some fresh paint on it. Two new layers, from 2005 and 2006, featuring work by APEX, JASE, NEON BA, plus CHORBOOGIE, PARISYTE, BLATE, and more. Follow the link above, and select “harveys/north” from the menu to see the new stuff.

new layers: cove

Shown here: cove/eastZ 48, June 24, 2006. Pieces by Begr, King157 and Kiroe, and characters by Twick.

A dozen was a pretty good esimate: it turned out to be 14 new layers on the cove/eastZ wall, bringing the total up to an amazing 48 layers. That is a lot of paint. The new layers feature work by ADAPT, AERO, AMEND, AREN, BABYD, BEGR, BURY, CAMOE, DISEK, DOLE, EAROK, FUNDS, KELOE, KING157, KIROE, MBSF, MESR, MILE, MYST, NOSER, PAYDIRT, PAZT, PLEASE, POLAR, PONCE, RMY, RUSTO, SEKO, SIEZ, SKAN, SPIROE, TWICK, WHORE, and as always, a few others that I can’t quite make out.

Coping with Too Many Layers

Some of the walls are starting to get pretty thick. Cove/eastZ, for example, is already clocking in at 34 layers, and that’s only in the range from September 2004 to February 2006. I have another dozen or so layers still to add before I can bring that wall up to date. This is great for the project, but not so good for the user experience.

The problem is that Flash starts to really bog down and get slow when you have too many objects visible on the screen at one time. So I made a quick little alteration to the code: now it only shows you at most 20 layers at once (15 if you’re viewing the low-res version). The overall effect should be pretty seamless: you might notice a few little corners disappearing from the very bottom of the stack, but it shouldn’t interfere with the experience. If you’re curious exactly which images are currently visible, direct your attention down to the timeline: invisible layers have their timeline icons dimmed, whereas the visible ones are bright white.

Timeline example: only layers 17 and up are visible.

New wall: Florida

Shown here: florida/east 8, January 15, 2006. Pieces by Curve, Does(?), Pastime and Erupto.

Tonight instead of watching the fireworks I made good on a promise… I said I’d update the site, so here’s an update. Flickr user Irieposse uploaded some classic pieces from the 1990’s to our group pool. Those pieces were painted on a wall that is, amazingly, still running today. I’ve been shooting this same wall since 2002, so between the two of us, our photos span 15 years of history. You can really see how styles have changed. Featuring work by Amaze, Some, Hast, MSA, Deen, Dug, Curve, Diet, Igni, Obces, Pest, Ceat, Does, Pastime, Erupto, Eklips, Reyes, Hense, Sever, Steel, Norm, Amanda Lynn, Eyeko, Bles, and a few others I can’t ID.

Many thanks to Irieposse for opening up that shoebox!

Brooklyn Museum seeks bklyn graf flicks

An interesting message was posted in our Flickr group, and I thought I’d repost it here:

The Brooklyn Museum has a great new Graffiti show running through Sept 30. We’ve created a new group and are asking for all Brooklyn Graffiti photos… so join our group and send your photos to the group stream!

Here’s the group:
www.flickr.com/groups/bklyn_graffiti/

More about the show:
www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/graffiti/

More about our projects on Flickr:
www.flickr.com/photos/brooklyn_museum/

I grew up in an apartment building across the street from the Brooklyn Museum. The subway train I took to school every day was covered with graffiti inside and out. Now the graffiti has moved into the museum itself. Funny how things come full circle!

Quality of Life on DVD

Quality of Life, the excellent feature film about two young writers in the San Francisco graf scene, is now out on DVD. It looks like there are lots of fun extra features, including a 38-minute making-of documentary, which I’m really looking forward to seeing, because this movie was made and funded in a very unusual way. Speaking of which: buying the DVD directly from the creators is the way to go. I just ordered my copy.