Spikey Posters

Finding a Place for Fly-Posters

While placards and bills have been used for publicity purposes since Egyptian and Roman antiquity, the origin of modern posters is connected with the advent of lithography and the rise of industrial modernity with its possibilities for mass production (Barnicoat, 1972; Gallo, 1974; Williams, 1980). Apart from their intensive use for purposes of advertising and institutional communication, which gathered pace in the late 18th century, posters were soon adopted by political groups and trade unions to spread messages and publicize demonstrations. Alongside other print media such as leaflets and newspapers, posters thus came to serve as popular communicative weapons in the arsenal of social movements in the late 19th and 20th centuries (Gallo, 1974; Glaser & Ilić, 2005; Sreberny & Mohammadi, 1994). For contemporary social movements, themselves components of societies affected by the diffusion of the Internet and mobile media, posters continue to constitute an important form of communication as well as a platform for new experimentations, as demonstrated, for example, by the Billboard Liberation Front in the United States (Klein, 2001).

The role of posters and similar “street media”—in the literal sense of media embedded within the streets (Murthy, 2005)—has been widely discussed in activist circles and publications, where they are considered as important forms of alternative media deserving specific attention (see, e.g., hks 13, 1999). Moreover, the use of such media—including the likes of stickers and dazibaos ⁵ as well as posters—has prompted waves of reaction from local authorities committed to policing public space from “vandalism” and defending their right to charge for advertising space. Yet, as it happens with other “ephemera” like leaflets and brochures, fly-posters have largely been overlooked by cultural and media researchers save for some passing remarks in scholarly works using notions similar to that of “street media” (Murthy, 2005) such as “small media” (Sreberny & Mohammadi, 1994) or “niche media” (Thornton, 1996).

This relative neglect of posters and connected practices seems attributable to the fact that because of their embedded-ness within urban public space, these means of communication blur the distinction between what is mediated and unmediated, which is too often taken for granted in current debates within media and cultural studies. Moreover, they unsettle widely held assumptions about the contemporary public sphere as one overly dominated by electronic media, and detached, by and large, from the physicality of public space (see, e.g., Poster, 2001). This disembodied view of contemporary communications is particularly visible in the scholarship about the impact of new media on activism, in which protest and dissent have been seen as progressively shifting to the virtual spaces of the web (Arquilla & Ronfeldt, 2001; McCaughey & Ayers, 2003; Papacharissi, 2003).

The study of fly-posting practices requires us to move away from such dominant understandings of communication technologies as invariably responsible for obliterating space, as first popularized by David Harvey’s (1990) theory of “time-space compression” (p. 240). With their imbrications of media and physical space, fly-posting practices are better accommodated by an alternative vision of media as processes “re-cast[ing] the organization of the spatial and temporal scenes of social life” (Barnett, 2004, p. 59). Building on this alternative framework, which in recent years has been developed by authors like Nick Couldry (see, e.g., Couldry, 2000; Couldry & McCarthy, 2004) and André Jansson (2007), in this article I want to shed light on the contribution of fly-posting practices in the construction of a local political space.

To develop such spatial analysis of fly-posting, we need to understand this practice in connection with the working of autonomous scenes, the spaces of sociability, and political organizing, which underlie the existence of autonomous movements (Leach & Haunss, 2009). Borrowing the subcultural notion of “scene,” activist-researchers Darcy Leach and Sebastian Haunss (2009) have noticed how social movements

form around recognized scene locations—meeting places like bars, clubs, parks, street corners, and so on, in recognized parts of town—where being part of the scene can be physically experienced and the signifiers of membership can be enacted and validated. (p. 265)

While physical hangouts are the defining elements of social movement scenes, these places are far from completely “immediate” in the sense of being unmediated. Their visibility and accessibility is, on the contrary, deeply dependent on the presence of a number of media practices used to publicize their activities and mobilize activists and sympathizers.

Discussing the case of the autonomous scene in Berlin, Leach and Haunss (2009) suggest that “[t]he four most common access points for tapping into the information channels of the scene and keeping abreast of leftist politics in Berlin are the streets, scene publications, Indymedia, and scene locales” (p. 263). In autonomous scenes like the one in Berlin, the “streets” and the street media displayed in them come to act as a crucial channel for publicizing events and actions:

As in most German university towns and larger cities, to find out what is “really” going on in Berlin, one does not read the newspapers, one reads the streets. Those arriving in Berlin for the first time, even if they do not know a single person, can find entry into the political scene simply by reading the posters and graffiti that cover the building walls, overpasses, and telephone poles all over town. Posters especially convey all kinds of political information—about protest actions, meetings, informational events, the formation of new groups, and social events like street festivals, parties, and concerts. (p. 263)

As reflected in the quote above, activist posters have an “informational” role, making people aware of different activities of the scene. Yet the meaning of fly-posters cannot be reduced to what James W. Carey (1989) has called the “transmission view of communication,” that is “the extension of messages in space and the act of imparting information” (p. 18), but needs to encompass an understanding of their “ritual” role in the symbolic construction and maintenance of a political space.

Writing in the German activist publication hoch die kampf dem (1999) under the collective name “hks 13,” a reference to the shade of red commonly used in political posters, Haunss, together with his comrades Markus Mohr and Klaus Viehmann, has shed light on a different and possibly more revealing role of fly-posting within activist scenes: not simply as a channel of information but as a form of demarcation of urban space.

Posters hint at a particular aspect of the geography of the city: they mark the places of autonomous/leftist politics, and the places of living of activists. This is because movement posters—counter to party or commercial publicity—are almost always posted by activists and their radius limits itself to the immediate surroundings of political centers and neighbourhoods. Only rarely do movement posters penetrate into the inner areas and the consumption zones of the city, and it is equally rare to see them in towns and small cities. (author’s translation; hks 13, 1999, pp. 10-11)

By using a spatial terminology popularized by Henri Lefebvre (1991), the authors suggest how fly-posting practices are connected to processes of spatial “appropriation” (p. 166), through practices of “demarcation” or “marking” of physical space (pp. 192, 207). Two questions need to be pursued in order to further this line of understanding of fly-posters as means of territorial demarcation. How and why exactly is fly-posting turned by activists into a vehicle of demarcation of urban space? And what is the nature of the political space constructed through fly-posting practices?

Methodologically, capturing the working of fly-posting as a practice of demarcation entails a study of the practices of distribution of posters, of the multiplicity of actions that go under the common label of “fly-posting,” rather than on processes of production and consumption. To explore this specific issue, I draw on fieldwork conducted in Berlin and Rome between 2007 and 2010. Field notes were collected during research visits lasting for 3 months in the case of Rome and 2 months in Berlin, during which I carried out ethnographic observations of alternative districts, taking photographs of fly-posted walls to study the distribution of posters in public space, and writing regularly field notes about my observations. Moreover, I conducted 15 in-depth interviews (8 in Rome and 7 in Berlin) with activists involved in the production and distribution of posters. In the continuation of the article, I expose the findings of this investigation and their implications for the understanding of the political space of autonomous movements.

On a Fly-Posting Mission

Touring the streets of alternative districts in Rome and Berlin, it is not uncommon to see activists working in pairs, one holding a bundle of posters and a brush and the other a bucket of glue, the first swinging his or her arm up and down, while the second holds the bucket and keeps an eye open to watch if anybody is coming. This circumspection is justified by the fact that the material distribution of posters, the mere act of fixing them to the wall, constitutes in itself a legal offence given that activists do not pay any fee for display and fly-post mostly in forbidden areas. Activists dare to break the law first and foremost for economic reasons. It is a matter of fact that “legal advertising is extremely costly” and “thus often proves unviable not only for activist groups but also for cultural institutions” (hks 13, 1999, p. 12). Apart from this practical motivation, fly-posting also becomes in itself a form of activism, denouncing the barriers to communication existing in urban space.

The illegal character of fly-posting has important consequences for its semiclandestine forms of distribution. After posters go to print—often using printers’ collectives or cooperatives connected with the autonomous scene—they are usually dropped at intermediate distribution nodes such as social centers, squats, and alternative bookshops. From there they can be picked up by small groups or individuals and distributed more widely. Already this first stage in the process of distribution presupposes itself some degree of organization and mutual trust among those involved and the presence of a minimum of activist infrastructure. However, the most problematic and risky part of the process begins once activists go out on a “fly-posting mission,” braving the threat of authorities and political opponents (see Figures 1 and 2).

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 1.

The entrance of Görlitzer Bahnhof station, in the activist neighborhood of Kreuzberg in Berlin covered in fly-posters (May 2010).

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 2.

Posters commemorating Left martyr Valerio Verbano in Rome’s Monte Sacro district (February 2008).

Given the temporal connection of fly-posters with specific events, be they demonstrations, parties, or other forms of public gathering, their fixing is an activity with a repetitive, mostly weekly cadence, which makes the walls targeted by fly-posting something akin to a snake’s ever-changing skin. New posters are stuck on top of the old ones, layer after layer, until the glue below the bottom layer begins drying, and sooner or later a wreckage of paper falls to the ground, at which point fly-posting can start afresh. This iterative nature of fly-posting, the fact that it needs to be done again and again, makes activists particularly vulnerable to the threat of legal repression. A series of precautions need to be taken to avoid the coercion of police and special antigraffiti units such as the Graffiti in Berlin squad. ⁶ Some people take advantage of night time and the cover of darkness while venturing into the streets to fly-post. Others prefer busy “rush hours,” during which one can more effectively pass unnoticed in the crowd.

Police and special “anti-environmental crime” squads are, however, just some of the actors of whom activists need be aware while disseminating their publicity around the city. Possibly a greater risk is posed by far right groups that can be encountered when out on a “mission.” In Rome it is not uncommon for fly-posting to give rise to fights between polar political groups. On May 26, 2008, for example, a group of university students affiliated with the autonomous collectives of La Sapienza ⁷ was assaulted with sticks and knives by members of the extreme rightwing group Forza Nuova. The attack occurred while the autonomous students were attaching posters to the external wall of the university in via De Lollis and thereby covering the posters that the neofascists had previously installed. ⁸

A vivid manifestation of what in the Italian capital is known as the “war of the walls” (guerra dei muri) are the recurrent fights over the posters commemorating the so-called “martyrs” of the Left and the Right. These are figures such as Valerio Verbano (for the Left) and Paolo Di Nella (for the Right) who were killed in the late 1970s and 1980s during clashes between “compagni” (comrades) and “camerati” (fascists). It is noteworthy that, Di Nella, a member of the neofascist Fronte della Gioventù, was beaten to death by leftist militants in 1983 precisely while he was fly-posting. Posters carrying the images of these and other “martyrs” accompanied by short commemorative texts regularly appear in the streets of Rome’s popular districts such as Centocelle and Pigneto, often triggering a violent response by rival groups.

Similar confrontations around fly-posting operations are also known to erupt in Berlin. For example, in February 2007, dozens of posters celebrating old-time Nazi hero Horst Wessel appeared in the Karlshorst neighborhood of Berlin, an area well known as a neo-Nazi hotbed. As soon as the news spread, local antifascist groups organized to tear the posters down, and fights between opposing groups were reported. Similar incidents often take place when a Nazi march is announced in a certain neighborhood of Berlin and other big German cities, and groups of autonomous activists enter the area to mark it with their own posters, as a symbolic challenge against those taking part in such demonstrations.

To cope with the risks involved in the process of fly-posting, autonomous activists develop procedures of distribution tailored to the political geography of the city, and the greater or lesser degree of political “sympathy” of different neighborhoods:

When we go to stick posters around we use the normal methodology we adopt in these cases. If it is the area just around our social centre two people are fine. When we move a bit further from the social centre we might go with a car and someone looking around to check everything is OK. Finally if we go in an area where we know there is a bad bar or club, in that case we go with two cars and we make sure we have means of self-defence. (Federico—Rome, February 12, 2008)

As illustrated by this quote, to fix fly-posters autonomous activists first need to ensure they are not physically prevented from doing so by their political adversaries. This involves preparing for violent confrontations, including possible ambushes by political enemies.

Fly-posting outside of one’s own safe territory entails the need for more “political manpower” and higher risks for those involved. The higher organizational costs faced when fly-posting away from the areas where the movement has its bases has important consequences for the distribution of posters in urban space. Carlo, an autonomous activist from Rome, for example, notices how

in an area of some hundred meters radius from a social centre you will not find any fascist posters, and in area surrounding a branch of Fronte della Gioventù [a far Right organization] or other fascist groups, you will not find any leftist posters. (Carlo—Rome, February 12, 2008)

As I could witness during my observations, the situation in Berlin is similar to the one seen in Rome whereby one encounters a sudden presence of posters on entering activist areas in Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain, while elsewhere in those neighborhoods and in the city as a whole autonomous posters are much more sparsely distributed.

This “radial” distribution of fly-posters with their clustering around the movement’s strongholds bears close resemblances to the findings of David Ley and Roman Cybrinsky’s (1974) classic study about gangs’ graffiti in Philadelphia. The two geographers noticed an overlap between graffiti and the physical presence of certain gangs, whereby “the incidence of gang graffiti becomes denser with increasing proximity to the core of a territory” (p. 214). Similarly to what happens in the case of gangs’ graffiti, the challenge posed by the coercion of public authorities and opponent groups affects fly-posters’ patterns of distribution. And given the risks involved in the process of fixing posters, their presence comes to communicate not only the specific message a certain poster carries but also the presence of the movement in a certain area, its level of organizational strength, and territorial control.

Acting as a marker of the presence of the movement in urban space, fly-posting comes to act both as a reassurance for sympathizers and as a warning for political opponents. “Fascists usually don’t dare to go in areas which are fly-posted, also because that communicates that there are movement people going around the streets, sometimes even patrolling them”, recounts Carlo, a Roman activist who was part of the early “Tute Bianche” (White Overalls), a group campaigning against the casualization of labor. He adds: “By the same token I usually don’t dare to go on my moped through piazza Bologna where they have their posters” (Carlo—Rome, February 12, 2008). As these quotes illustrate, the symbolic appropriation of public space is predicated on a material appropriation of walls and streets and an exercise of control over them. And, in turn, the appropriation of walls and streets is enforced also through the presence of posters, warning opponents to keep out of the area.

The territorial character of fly-posting is further evidenced by practices aimed at defending posters, preventing them from being torn down by opponents after they have been stuck to the walls. It is in fact a common practice for rival groups to engage in tearing down each other’s posters, as already mentioned in the context of commemorative posters of political “martyrs” in Rome. In Italy, activists have even coined a specific word for that action: “strappinaggio” (the act of tearing apart), which rhymes with the established term “attacchinaggio” (the act of posting). One of the ways in which autonomous activists defend posters is by adding small pieces of glass, sometimes broken bulbs, or even small nails and pins, and similarly sharp materials, to the glue used to fix the posters, in order to wound those who try to tear them down. “Activists often want to give a bad surprise to people trying to tear posters down, so that they think twice before doing it again” explains Sandy K., a well-known designer of political posters in Berlin (Sandy K.—Berlin, April 25, 2010).

Another tactic adopted for the defense of posters are “activist patrols.” Autonomous activists in both Rome and Berlin often scout the areas nearby their bases of support (squats, social centers, and the like) to intercept right-wing militants intent on removing their posters. “Since we are radically antifascists we constantly guard against the incursions of fascists in our areas” asserts Ludovico, an activist of the Horus Occupato social centre in Rome. And precisely because posters need to be defended after being stuck to the city’s walls, “it doesn’t make sense to go everywhere sticking posters, if you don’t even manage to make sure that they remain where they are” (Ludovico—Rome, March 29, 2009). To sum up, the organizational costs involved in fixing and then defending posters makes their geographic distribution a reflection of autonomous movements’ struggle for territorial control. Fly-posters become political markers, a symbol of territorial appropriation, “flagging” the fact that the walls and the streets in a certain area belong to the movement.

Paper Boundaries

In view of its connection with physical force or the threat thereof, fly-posting in the autonomous scene should be understood fundamentally as a practice of diffuse boundary-making, constructing a sense of antagonistic territoriality around the movement strongholds. By means of fly-posting, public spaces like streets, squares, public gardens, in the vicinity of squats, social centers, political bars, and other hotspots of the autonomous scene, are symbolically appropriated to the movement and turned into a sort of buffer area, an extensive boundary zone encompassing the scene proper and ostensibly protecting it from mainstream society and political opponents. The “paper boundaries” constructed through fly-posting operations contribute to the crucial task of chasing away political opponents and authorities, by threatening them with a physical response in case of intrusion, much in the same way in which the graffitis of a certain gang are aimed at keeping rival gang members at bay.

The “spikey” character of fly-posting is not unique to the autonomous scene or radical politics in general. Raymond Williams (1980) noticed, for example, how in 19th-century Britain commercial “fly-posting [ . . .] was made more hazardous by rival gangs (paste for your own, blacking for the others)” (p. 23). Moreover, as mentioned in reference to Ley and Cybrinsky’s study of gang graffiti, similar territorial conflicts are evident in other groups and in connection with other forms of street media. In the specific case of the autonomous scene, the connection between posters and territoriality is of particular interest because it reveals the peculiar understanding of public space that underscores the culture of autonomous movements. This is the question that I want to discuss in the final part of this article.

A key concept in the culture of autonomous movements is unsurprisingly “autonomy” (Katsiaficas, 1997/2006). Among the many uses of this term, one of its key meanings is autonomy from the control of both the state and market as it is prefigured in “occupied” spaces like squats and social centers. In Italy, these spaces go under the name of “spazi liberati,” and in Germany they are known as “Freie Räume,” translating to “liberated spaces” and expressing autonomous movements’ strive for autonomy as liberation from the spatial encroachment of state and capital. Fly-posting stands to demonstrate that this strive for spatial autonomy transcends the narrow confines of “semi-public” spaces like squats and social centers and also makes its presence felt in public space proper. By means of fly-posting, streets, squares, parks, and vast tracts of alternative neighborhoods like San Lorenzo and Pigneto in Rome or Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain in Berlin are symbolically and physically appropriated by the movement, made somehow part of its own territory. But what kind of space is the one that autonomous activists construct and maintain through these communicative practices?

It is remarkable how the space appropriated by autonomous movements by means of fly-posting is in contradiction to the normative emphasis on openness and boundlessness that characterizes contemporary debates among both liberal and leftist academics. It is first and foremost a space that has very little to do with Jürgen Habermas’ (1968/1989, 1996) liberal vision of a public sphere as a space of rational debate open potentially to all, regardless of their status, but also with Hannah Arendt’s (1957/2009) more nuanced image of a public space modeled on the Athenian agora, where citizens continuously gather to decide on public matters. This divergence is well illustrated by the words of Friedrich, an activist from Berlin: “We don’t have an idea of public space, in which everybody can come and have their opinion heard, even if they are extreme right-wing” (Friedrich—Berlin, March 12, 2009).

There is not much resonance either with Gilles Deleuze’s and Félix Guattari’s (2004) predilection for the smooth, deterritorialized space of nomads, over the “striated” space constructed by the state, which has inspired so many libertarians, autonomous activists included. Counter to the emphasis on boundlessness of Deleuze and Guattari, the space constructed by autonomous activists by means of fly-posting is fundamentally an exclusive space, a space that relies on the presence of a “constitutive outside” (Laclau & Mouffe, 1985). Rather than reflecting a striving for nomadism and deterritorialization, fly-posting is chiefly involved in the construction of symbolic boundaries and in the maintenance of a peculiar form of territoriality, an “extraterritorial territoriality” of sorts. It is remarkable how many social movements make their presence felt precisely by erecting material and symbolic borders around a territory they claim as theirs. A telling example here is the Wounded Knee incident that took place in 1973 in the United States. Two hundred members of the American Indian Movement occupied for over 2 months a site where a mass killing of people of the Lakota nation had taken place in 1890. They declared the area a new state, the “Independent Oglala Nation,” aggressively patrolling its perimeter against intruders (D’Arcus, 2006). Similarly “autonomous” fly-posting testifies to the effort to construct an independent territory that contests the sovereignty of the State over all the areas of a nation.

Naturally the boundaries drawn by means of fly-posting are hardly impenetrable. Fly-posting traces borders that are contested, contradictory, and highly porous. This is not only because fly-posters construct “paper boundaries,” which in themselves do not constitute a material obstacle to intrusions, but also because while symbolically repulsing certain kinds of people, fly-posters welcome others. The autonomous scene can survive only through constant inflow of activists and sympathizers and their attendance of the social and political events publicized through fly-posters, given that it is from this ongoing flow that the autonomous scene draws its scanty economic income. Thus, while fly-posters are involved in enforcing the exclusion of those people who endanger its fragile existence and in particular authorities and right-wing groups, they are also the means that offer “access” to social movement scenes. Here lies the fundamental ambivalence of fly-posting as a practice of demarcation, which at the same time welcomes and repulses, invites and threatens, excludes some people only to include others.

Conclusion

The main claim of this article has been that fly-posters cannot be reduced to channels of information along the lines of the so-called “transmission view of communication” (Carey, 1989). On the contrary, in studying fly-posters we need to chiefly pay attention to their contribution to the construction of a sense of locality and territoriality, as a means of demarcation and appropriation of public space. As we have seen in the course of this article, the distribution of posters exposes activists to both police repression and violence by political opponents. These risks influence the spatial distribution of posters, which tend to concentrate around those places that constitute the hotspots of the autonomous scene: squats, social centers, political bars and bookshops, and similar activists hangouts. As a consequence, the presence of fly-posters in the city also comes to be read by scene participants as well as by opponents as a sign of the presence of the movement in a certain area and thus as a claim to territorial control.

What makes fly-posting worth studying, apart from its intrinsic interest, is that it offers a glimpse of the spatial politics of autonomous activism. Fly-posting aggressively encroaches on portions of public space, claiming it for the movement. As this operation often entails confrontation with authorities and political opponents, it reveals how, for certain groups in society, the possibility to communicate with others is bound to unlawful intervention within public space. From this practice there emerges an idea of public space that runs against liberal democratic notions of the public sphere and freedom of speech, as enshrined in the work of authors like Habermas and Arendt. Instead, fly-posting points to an understanding of public space as something that needs to be repeatedly taken away and kept away from others (and in particular the State and political opponents) in order to be made use of. The public space constructed by fly-posting is therefore not an inclusive space available to everybody regardless of their political belonging but rather an exclusive space, whose internal cohesion rests on the exclusion of opponents.

The discussion of fly-posting developed in this article, and the evidence of its role in claiming public space for the movement, also suggests the need to avoid reducing the notion of “scene” to the set of specific indoor venues that are under activists’ constant occupation. Rather, we need to adopt a more fluid vision of what a “scene” is and understand it more as a diffuse and dynamic “ambience” encompassing also those areas of alternative neighborhoods that play host to the scene’s venues and are marked by means of fly-posting, as well as by similar practices such as graffiti or political stickers. Fly-posting must therefore be seen as a practice that extends the autonomous scene to the surrounding urban space, making certain outdoor spaces figure as part of the autonomous scene.

Finally, fly-posting practices as they have been discussed in this article also invite us to reassess our understanding of the contribution of media practices to the life of contemporary cities, avoiding the temptation to invariably locate them in a “virtual” space detached from occasions of physical proximity. Rather than casting communication technologies as a channel for communication at a distance, fly-posters revolve instead around the construction of a sense of proximity and territoriality. The continuing importance of fly-posting thus appears to contradict reductionist interpretations of contemporary society as completely integrated in a “global village,” brought together by electronic communication. It instead highlights the stubborn survival and constant symbolic reinvention of forms of antagonistic and non-statist territoriality, constructed through the use of “street media” like fly-posters. We can thus see the specificity of posters as well as of other street media in their orientation within and anchoring of a public space, a space so often marked by violence and confrontation as it becomes an object of appropriation for competing social movement scenes.