GRAFFITIdawg looks into the results of getting caught tagging....

Caught!

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Recent television and Internet news that tagger Sean Robert Taylor (pictured) walked away from a Western Australian court with a 12 months sentence (suspended for 18 months) has made headlines across Australia and Internet news services. The twenty-year-old tagger narrowly avoided prison for causing approximately $23, 000 worth of damage to a Perth council property. Taylor was instead fined $500 and 100 hours of community service because of previous vandalism (most probably tagging) related offenses. Perth Magistrate Stephen Malley stated that his main concern while sentencing was that a stay in prison could damage Taylor’s emotional and maturity development.

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  Magistrate Malley noted that even though Sean Taylor’s offences were serious and should warrant a stay in prison, placing him in a facility that was full of convicted criminals with harsher crimes may leave 20-year-old Taylor at the beck-and-call of inmates that could possibly use him for interesting prison sporting activities. 

The Cleaning Bill:

Western Australia in 2002 had an expensive hard slog with the combined graffiti clean-up bill for a number of councils revealed as nearly $1.7 million. The Hobart City Council in 2009, reported annual  tag cleaning cost in excess of $70 000. Interesting fodder for thought, GRAFFITIdawg lives in Hobart and current Tasmanian legislation does not provide specific laws on offences related to the acts of graffiti and tagging as vandalism but refer to them as Marking Graffiti, anyone caught carrying or using Graffiti Implements (spray-cans, stencils and so on) without a lawful excuse can be prosecuted .

Side effects and Considerations: 


Understandably, with this current sentencing, how would you define graffiti? What factors would make you think it was vandalism? Which factors would make you think it was art or social comment or social destructive behaviour? These are just some of the questions that the Magistrate may have considered when deciding the sentence of Taylor. In the state of NewSouth Wales, graffiti is considered a crime (considered vandalism) punishable by fines, community service orders or even imprisonment. In August 2011, NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell stated that he would apply a blowtorch to upper house Members of Parliament to get harsher new anti graffiti legislation passed.  

Personal Consideration and The Fear Effect:

If you consider graffiti and tagging vandalism then vandalism can cost some communities many things in many ways, not just in the financial outlay to fix or prevent tagging and some forms of graffiti but also in creating the emotional fear of crime associated with the supposed destructive nature of young people who participate in the activity. Some people see graffiti as just another form of vandalism. For others, graffiti is self-expression, art, political comment or within a peer group: socially provoked action. 

Reference.

Graffiti &Tagging: an easy introduction

There are predominantly two main styles of art on the streets today. GRAFFITIdawg will explain the difference between tagging, and graffiti.

• Tagging (sprayed initials) and its concept, has become the rushed act of leaving your name or pseudonym quickly, anonymously while...

• Graffiti (street art) may be considered by some: the aerosol, brush painted endeavour of an adventurously talented person who wishes to ‘share’ their elaborate artistry with an appreciative audience, even when uploading anonymously to services like YouTube.

While graffiti might be considered art,  practiced mainly on disused buildings and walls, tagging is predominantly considered by authorities vandalism (even historically), simply for the fact that spray scrawled initials are being left everywhere. There is a quasi war out there and that war is tagging.

As humans have progressed and graffiti has evolved, (well since we have the urge to leave any mark), people cover just – about - everything that they can get around, in and on. For some it is the act of leaving their own personal mark like a beacon for others to acknowledge and appreciate. Hobart, the capital city of Tasmania is one such place that has experienced an increase in both legitimate and illegal graffiti and tagging.

This is an image of an abandoned education facility, the ‘Hobart Tepid Baths’.

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People have found the abandoned site interesting enough to post videos on YouTube that show the work of graffiti artists.

Situated just on the edge of the central business district of Hobart.

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Peering into the shady recesses it was easy to see what had been tagged, and what had been graffiti-ed.

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This image is just one example of a quick tag on the outside of the building. By the looks of the flow of the writing, it might have taken less than 10 seconds for the tagger to spray on the public access wall then simply walk away unnoticed.

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As a spectator, you might consider this image - street art, an example of graffiti, imaginative art.

Hobart and surrounding areas are dotted with examples of both graffiti and tagging.

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In 2008, Street Art- Graffiti was presented as a 'legitimate' exhibition at the prestigious Tate Gallery in London, England. YouTube's ability to share with a widening audience has enabled anybody to experience that event while not actually attending in person.

Graffiti - after all - has become art in the eye of the beholder. Some may consider the spray-painting of walls vigilante vandalism, while others have a different perspective, a possible consideration that the outpouring of artistic displays avails creative open air galleries that are 'free' for viewing by young and old, rich or poor. Whatever artistic perspective a person has concerning the use of spray cans, paintbrushes and stencil cut-outs this web-blog aims to explore the inter meshing lines and colour of graffiti/tagging alongside the social bi-effects they generate