Graffiti writer as superhero

A heroic life

This section further analyses the current structure of this field of action. When we talk about graffiti, we refer to a cultural universe supported by a group of people sharing a sense of community. These youngsters have their own vocabulary and aesthetic parameters and keep to a series of rules, values and practices which, as a whole, operate as elements of distinction from other communities. In spite of its stylistic mutations, graffiti painting retains a series of ratified formats. Their denominations were defined more than 40 years ago and include ‘tag’, ‘throw-up’ and ‘masterpiece’ – which usually in common speech is replaced by the term ‘Hall of Fame’. However, writers tend to dissociate graffiti expressions into two separate groups: illegal and semi-legal (or legal). The former relates to actions that are plainly illegal in nature, defined by some as vandalism (‘street bombing’ and ‘train bombing’). The latter includes activities that are socially more engaged, with the aim of making decorative or artistic murals, often with the approval of private and public entities.

A graffiti writer’s status originates from evaluating a series of criteria related to the merit and quality of the work, determining the writer’s place in this universe. Diverse types of graffiti (illegal and semi-legal) call for distinct abilities. However, generally speaking, what matters most is the visibility (inscriptions in public space) and quality of the work (which graffiti writers refer to as their ‘style’). This is mainly a meritocratic culture (Snyder, 2009). The harsher the itinerary, the greater the merit of those who travel along it, and the rewards are not instant. Instead, they are the result of persistence, devotion and manifestation of a missionary spirit that is not within reach of everyone. Nancy Macdonald (2001) calls it a ‘moral career’, in so much as an individual’s trajectory is guided by public esteem and reputation, not by any prospects of material reward. Dividends are nothing more than symbolic, emotional and social in nature. They come from a welcoming into the tribe, the valuing of a name built on personal merit. Hierarchical ascension depends on accumulating feats and the greater they are, the more value they endow their performer. The status of ‘King’ ⁴ depends on subcultural recognition of relevant actions and achievements.

Therefore, a graffiti writer’s career is defined by manifesting resistance towards adversity and overcoming the challenges that are set before him. ⁵ The analysis I have made of graffiti writers’ discourse and conversations, where they passionately describe their missions, has led me to reflect over the heroic nature of the prototypical graffiti writer. For this, I have resorted to Featherstone (1992) who understands the heroic life as the reversal of a routinely and monotonous everyday life. A heroic life is a calling to extraordinary feats, to break away from everything that is trivial and settled:

If everyday life revolves around the mundane, taken from granted and ordinary, then the heroic life points to its rejection of this order for the extraordinary life which threatens not only the possibility of returning to everyday routines, but entails the deliberate risking of life itself ... In many ways the heroic life shares the quality of an adventure, or series of adventures. (Featherstone, 1992: 164–165)

Following Featherstone’s reasoning, this appears to be a game of adventure and heroics where the ordered sense of everyday life and its safety are suspended. However, it is even more than this: the hero is a moral category. It represents the archetype of the noblest and more valued qualities of the human being (Loeb and Morris, 2005). Hence, this is a game where one aspires to perfect several physical, emotional, moral and aesthetic skills as a prerequisite to attaining fame and glory. I go so far as to suggest that these young people tend to fabricate a somewhat romantic representation of the archetypical graffiti writer (the ‘King’) as a sort of superhero, one with superhuman abilities. Furthermore, their heroic imaginary seems to be influenced somewhat by models that have been forcefully globalised by the media and contemporary cultural industries. Just as graffiti has suffered a planetary ramification through effective circuits of image broadcasting and cultural artefact consumption, so the imaginaries of the North-American heroic mythology have been globally diluted. In my opinion, there is a significant analogy between the way that graffiti is lived and represented by its players, and the universes that harbour North-American superheroes, first made popular by comic books and later by movies, television and videogames. ⁶ The most obvious affinity seems to be the invention of a mask and an alter ego that are opposed to an official identity. The created alter ego provides the promise of neverending adventure hidden in the night, via the anonymity of a mask. This persona bluntly opposes the identity that is socially recognised, forged within the scope of an everyday life that is regulated by institutions such as school, family or work. These youngsters lead two very different lives with separate identities that share a peaceful or otherwise turbulent coexistence which somehow they must manage.

As we shall see, there are other characteristics in this culture that refer to heroic tales. There is the persistent idea of a fight against forces that are more powerful, demanding that one rises above the ordinary. The graffiti writers must transcend their very self, continuously challenging their limits. In order to do this, they will provide proof of their character and merit by risking their lives to paint in the subways, on top of buildings or on trains, eluding video surveillance and the police and enduring the violence of their rivals. Just as in the myth of the superhero, the idea of liminality always seems to be there. On the one hand, if there are liminal instances of space and time associated with the night, undergrounds, trains and abandoned factories, on the other hand, there are liminal identities: hidden, concealed, mutant and misunderstood. Therefore, this is in many different ways a game full of fantasy. Through the means of this game, forged from rules that go against social norms and dominant morals, youngsters test their boundaries and become creative agents by managing their own career paths.

Leading a double life

The graffiti writers’ world is a closed world protected from the outside. Anonymity is essential. The tag appears out of the necessity to maintain anonymity from an action that is illegal, and therefore may lead to an indictment. A tag is usually a dispersed set of letters that does not necessarily have to make sense in a clear way, and may not even correspond to a linguistic sign (with signified and signifier). Generally speaking, when it is the product of some reflection, it is chosen in accordance with the verbal or visual impact that it might have. The expressions used, when they have a verbal meaning, relate to ideas, imaginaries and feelings that for some reason are important to the author. This is a way to individually qualify the person in the community and bestow upon this individual a new identity, an exact meaning, a designation that carries with it purposefulness. This identification with the tag is important in so much as it allows the author to create a career, memory or certain allegorical meaning to their performance as a graffiti writer – as the writer who goes by the name of ‘Fire’ admitted:

Fire is currently my main name, it is my name, Fire, it’s the name that people respect … Vodu, Fire, Enemy [his former graffiti tags], all have the ambition to be strong names, respected. Fire is a mythical name, right? … It’s a very powerful name and I have chosen this name so that it may also become a strong name in graffiti. (Interview with Fire, 28 April 2005)

The fabrication of a name has an important symbolic charge and marks the transition to a new social field, with its own inner logic. The first step towards acceptance in this community begins with this magical operation of suspending the official identity (with its biography and given name) and creating a new identity with a biography yet to be written. This ability to give issue to the agent’s own alter ego provides the individual with a new power. This process also reveals that in this universe, an individual is just as responsible for their name as they are for the actions that are attributed to it. It is every graffiti writer’s duty to preserve, defend and honour their tag, trying to raise it to a higher category:

What we put up on the walls is our name. If anyone touches what we have made, he is talking to us … If anyone steps on our toes we will have to face it. It is our image, our well-being in graffiti that’s on the line. (Interview with Fire, 28 April 2005)

That is one of the main goals … I don’t think it’s about seeing the name, but having respect for that name, for instance … A guy that paints a lot, paints … really like a vandal, painting big bombs and trains and without a break, then everyone is like: ‘Hey man, that guy!’ He is pushing it, because he really has style and is doing really pushy stuff and he is all over the place … and they have more respect for that name. (Interview with Cria, 18 April 2005)

Writers lead a double life, an existence divided between routine chores accepted by social norms, on the one hand, and camouflaged activities, safe from the authorities’ vigilance and social criticism, on the other hand. As mentioned in the interview with Raps (4 July 2005): ‘Twelve hours a day I have to be someone … let’s say, from nine to five I am someone, from then on I am a graffiti man.’ This duplicity is managed, with greater or lesser hardship, according to the circumstances of everyday life. The balance depends on one’s performance in the graffiti universe and the restrictions brought about by life outside graffiti. Therefore, what a graffiti writer is outside graffiti determines greatly what they are in graffiti and vice versa. These two opposite ends are interrelated and each one feeds on the other in harmony or conflict. In order to make graffiti it is not necessary to give up the other life; however, in most cases there are specific aspects where tension is hard to ease. The more a writer is dedicated to the illegal activity – the more they invest time, energy, money and feelings in it – the more likely it will be that pressure, incompatibility and schisms will appear and divide the graffiti life from the outside world. An effective disjunction between the diurnal aspects of these youngsters’ lives (school, family or job) and their nocturnal existence (painting under the cover of night, shielded from surveillance), becomes clear:

There are two people living my life and one is R.S., which is the guy that has to work from 9 to 6 or even more, right? And then there is the X and the Y and the W, you see? All these aliases, all these nicknames are related to graffiti. (Interview with Raps, 4 July 2005)

The juxtaposition of this world and the social imaginary of the superhero is plausible. In fact, the removing and placing of masks, the constant interchanging of worlds, the taking on of divergent roles – all these are a part of a graffiti writer’s routine. As a result, the journey ends up being similar to that of a performance or theatrical play. Performance reflects greatly the construction of imaginary identities, strongly indebted to the media, as well as the appropriation and manifestation of accounts portraying the pursuit of an idealised identity. Mask embodiment is a move towards the realm of anonymity and adventure: it is to withhold for a moment the oppressive character of institutions that are envisaged as monitoring and indoctrinating forces. It is in this limbo that the youngsters create their rules and play with their invisible powers. These powers are not valued or recognised by hegemonic norms and socialising institutions, but are essential to the struggle for power and status in countless youth cultures.

The social condition of graffiti actors is relevant in order to question processes of identity construction, fragmentation of identities and group creativity in the fabrication of cultural models outside dominant standards. This is a closed universe, shielded from the outside and safely hidden in the dark, where entry implies the adoption of a whole new social condition – a place not within dominant roles and social norms. This transition is marked by rules and exact rituals and determines the reconfiguration of the self. Here, as in many other groups or communities represented as marginal or deviant, deviation and rupture with dominant regulations provide the opportunity for constructing new social bonds and alternate sets of norms (Becker, 1963; Goffman, 1968). The space for transgression is also a space for order and integration.

Risk and transcendence

In 2006 I interviewed a 17-year-old graffiti writer who was clearly upset by recent events: he had witnessed powerlessly a tragic accident. Describing the accident in detail, he was still disturbed by the events that had taken place the previous weekend. He had been painting a train along with other writers, when unexpectedly one of his friends decided to take a picture from the top of the carriage. His friend made a brisk move and was struck by an electric shock that left him charred and motionless on the ground. He was assisted immediately on site and transferred to the hospital, where he spent several months recovering. Since then, the young graffiti writer has slowly been getting back to health, in spite of the burn marks on his body. It is said that he is ‘back in action’.

As I was learning about this event, which could have been much more tragic, I was forced to consider the urban graffiti universe as a risky arena where youngsters of various ages put their physical integrity in danger on a daily basis, challenging both the authorities and the laws of gravity. In fact, over the many informal chats and in-depth interviews that I conducted, the acts of violence and bravery, or situations of high adrenaline charge, were regularly mentioned by many through the telling of personal memories and construction of individual biographies.

As shown by several authors (Ferrell, 1996; Macdonald, 2001; Snyder, 2009), danger is a key element of understanding graffiti culture and the construction of a writer’s identity. Eventually, these practices of voluntary risk-taking may lead to an addictive game where two dangerous ingredients are mixed together: competition and adrenaline. Addiction to this activity is something that comes up frequently in the words of the graffiti writers:

That’s how it is, it’s like a drug [laughs] – it’s true, I live with graffiti 24 hours a day, it is something like… I can’t even explain how or why, it is something totally absorbing, it absorbs me, I mean really really absorbs me … It seems as though it is stronger than me, I can’t really control it – not that I want to control it just yet. (Interview with Dona, 12 April 2005)

Graffiti … It sticks to you inside and then you have to paint some more and paint some more, because it’s your name there and you want to paint more. It bubbles up in your blood, it’s boiling and you’re there, so you have to do it, you do it and you’re ‘stung’ when you see it and you want to do it some more and … I don’t even know how you would be able to run away from that … I just don’t know. (Interview with Fire, 28 April 2005)

Risk derives from several actions that are threatening to the performers’ physical integrity. In fact, it is common to meet graffiti writers that openly talk about their bruises and ‘war injuries’, displayed as proof of self-sacrifice. Moreover, danger is linked to the possibility that writers may be caught by the authorities which, in less awkward situations, may imply a brief stay in a police station as well as expensive fines, police brutality or serious complications on the personal and familial level. Therefore, there is a proportional relation between risk and glory (or rather, misfortune). The more risky and dangerous the site or context where action takes place, the greater the acknowledgement it provides. Apart from the social esteem that it may provide, living the risk is in itself a source of motivation: the abyss is often sought out just for the challenge it represents and the satisfaction it gives. This feeling is unique for many people, and it is often the best thing that graffiti has to offer, which is why it justifies the fact that many graffiti writers partake in illegal graffiti. Ferrell (1996) has noticed the existence of this incandescent excitement in graffiti activities where, just as in other urban subcultures, compensation for tediousness in everyday life may be found. Thus the ordered meaning of the world and normal hierarchy of emotions are reversed by this increasing proximity with liminal spaces, and with playing with death and the unforeseeable. In these regions, youngsters often find another self. Living on the edge requires acts of heroism where fear has no room, as testified by Dona:

I think that a writer has to be a bit crazy in the head. A writer has to be a bit ‘not all up there’ (laughs). Because that is how it is, there can be no fear. A writer cannot be afraid of stuff. They can be afraid but when it’s time, fear has to go away and make room for something else … if we are going on a mission, we’re all: ‘It is time! It is time! Let’s go!’ Like, it has to be there and we have to do it, regardless of any fear we may have on the inside, to forget the fear and go, without thinking. (Interview with Dona, 12 April 2005)

In a society where safety and risk control are held dear, it is intriguing that risky behaviour has become so important to so many people. Le Breton (1991), Lyng (1990, 2004) and Ferrell (2004) provide some convincing reasons for this apparent paradox. Usually, the practice of voluntary risk-taking is bound to a personal discourse that emphasises escape from social control and regulation of the civilised body. These are physically and emotionally threatening experiences that may be construed as situations where the ideal of a rational and disembodied self is rejected, and a raw and emotional self is triggered by exposure to danger. Le Breton (1991) suggests that in every symbolic game where death is challenged, we can find an expression of transgression. As he explains it, in a security-prone society dominated by rationality and technology, danger becomes a space for freedom where the self can be asserted. Freedom ensues from this personal choice of risk and transgression – from the very desire to be different and to play with liminal identities.

Lyng’s (1990) edgework theory adequately fits this articulation of game, risk and heroics, underlying the practice of illegal graffiti. According to Lyng, edgework activities ‘involve a clearly observable threat to one’s physical or mental well-being or one’s sense of an ordered existence’ (1990: 857), and constitute ‘a type of experiential anarchy in which the individual moves beyond the realm of established social patterns to the very fringes of ordered reality’ (1990: 882). Participation in these matters requires certain specific individual capacities. These are skills that transcend the individual capacities used in everyday life and include the reaction before the abyss or imminent danger. Lyng further identifies various feelings that are described by the individuals participating in these practices that match what the present research has found in its analysis of graffiti writer’s discourse. The author mentions a ‘purified and magnified sense of self’, altered perception and awareness, feelings of absolute self-control, control of the environment and surrounding objects and the experiencing of a sort of hyperreality (Lyng, 1990). Both Lyng (1990, 2004) and Ferrell (2004) insist on this idea: that activities of voluntary risk-taking, as well as certain types of criminal activity, are escape mechanisms for evading the coercive power of social structures that determine the enforcement of social roles. Certain practices such as illegal graffiti may present creative, ludic and pleasurable ways of reacting to the routine and boredom:

Then there was this connection with the thing that graffiti represents, all the adrenaline, the constant search for a radical thing, something awesome, out of the ordinary, distant from the tediousness of society – and you let yourself go a little bit and believe me, it is such a thrill to pick up a can and let all that ‘fzzzzt…’ noise sink in … It is a moment, you know? And you should have moments in life where you break free from everything else and you just stand there… with one single thought. (Interview with Raps, 4 July 2005)

These days, one of the things that really make me paint graffiti is the fact that I need to be doing something that I can claim to be doing just because I choose to, and I paint what I want and where I want to … It is freedom, whereas these days, in real life and in everyday life, you do a lot of stuff you didn’t even want to do … but you are forced to, because you know that if you don’t, you won’t eat or have a job or something like that. Graffiti is really an expression of freedom. You do it because you want to and because you feel like it – no one is going to force you to paint graffiti. (Interview with Molin, 8 June 2005)

David versus Goliath

Heroism emerges before the unexpected and when obstacles are seemingly insurmountable. The more pugnacious the opposing forces, the greater the one who defies them. In what concerns illegal graffiti, these remarkable qualities that make heroes are claimed by an activity that repeatedly appears to be a kind of unequal match. The more obvious and recurring dispute is between graffiti writers and the authorities, as seen in the following testimony:

We went there to paint… The police showed up on horses … all of a sudden, we were surrounded by three GOE [special police unit]! … That was the worst day of my life! We climbed it down all the way back, ’til the factories, ended up in a precipice … had to jump over barbed wire to the other side … The guy fired. He fired just like that, straight ahead! (Interview with the members from the 3D crew, 8 September 2003)

These conversations and other similar ones have depicted countless events where writers met police authorities, in a sort of cat and mouse play, with victories on both sides. ⁷ Clearly, those that have not experienced such troublesome episodes are an exception. It is very unlikely to meet someone who does not know of incidents that happened to their friends or acquaintances. Those who have studied the subject of graffiti have remarked on the significance of this combat between opposing forces. It is the true driving spirit of a culture that is proud to stand against the authorities and social norms (Castleman, 1982; Cooper and Chalfant, 1984; Ferrell, 1996; Macdonald, 2001). The eternal battle between good and evil is reconfigured in a magical way by these graffiti writers, thus becoming hero-vandals who make their own masks and choose an alter ego to harass forces that are immeasurably more powerful. This duel between David and Goliath is praised. It is with obvious pride that youngsters under 20 boast about how they got away from police officers and vehicles. However, not all stories turn out like this, as many also end up getting caught. Fines may come one after another, forcing a reassessment of these practices. ⁸ These hostile forces are not limited to the police. There is a whole dominant society that, in a somewhat fuzzy way, is conceived as an opponent and often identified with the power of the state or large corporations:

As far as I’m concerned, illegal graffiti is not just about the risk thing, but also a bit about my rebellion … this is why you saw this tag, where it was written… ‘FIGHT!’ Yeah, it is a bit of that, not some fight like in a physical way, but a fight sort of… fight the system! Fight something I don’t like and that I have to put up with over and over again, stuff I see everyday and that I don’t like, that our country won’t change – and this is my way to protest. (Interview with Mask, 31 March 2005)

The existence of a permanent symbolic guerrilla is revealed by the attack on state and corporate property by the violent ‘bombing’ of an organised, aseptic and policed city. This is a mission that finds a strong resistance from police, surveillance forces and rival groups, seen as the enemy. Schemes plotted to overcome obstacles and succeed in missions often show a great individual and collective effort dedicated to observation of the opponent’s routines. Train and subway missions demand a precise knowledge of the functioning of railroad lines, the movements and schedules of personnel and train carriages. This capital is accumulated over time and provides power and prestige. One of the graffiti writers interviewed admitted that this was without a doubt ‘the single greatest conspiracy ever, on a worldwide scale’ (conversation with Mosaik, 1 December 2004).

The greatness of these missions is plain, not only in overcoming difficulties but also due to the fact that this activity is truly bereft of economic interest. These individuals do not do it in search of financial profit; rather, they are looking for a way to gain recognition in their struggle with powerful enemies. In this world there is always an implicit glorification of the missionary and the selfless spirit of those that willingly resist money-induced corruption. Furthermore, this is a fight against the often- coercively imposed circumstances of life. While climbing buildings, penetrating underground train tunnels and escaping from the police, young graffiti writers are challenging the limits of life and normative boundaries. They are facing death, moral and legal sanctions. Therefore, it is no wonder that in some way and under certain circumstances, these youngsters feel that they are different and superior to the common man. This is a type of superiority we find in the self-representation of some subcultural groups (Becker, 1963). There is a sort of self-righteousness that they bear as an identity mark, characterised by conduct that rejects materialism and conformity, and instead seeking adventure, art and rebellion.