Thursday, October 25, 2007

Reverse graffiti

This video comes from this Wired article in which graffiti artist Alexandre Orion cleans soot from the underbelly of a highway tunnel to form his art. The positive action of cleaning juxtaposed with the perceived delinquency of vandalism is a great idea. I love seeing the cops come up to Orion expecting an arrest, and being completely dumbfounded to find only a cleaning rag.

4 comments:

Excaliborn7 said...

Wow. Seriously. This is friggin' great. So simple. So unassailable.
And the multiple skull images he's creating are fantastic, visually and symbolically powerful in the environment. I love this action.

Tyler said...

This is quite ironic and intelligent - and aesthetically creative!

emma-b said...

I agree with Ben that the skulls are an interesting image for the tunnel. They really remind me of catacombs that I saw in Paris. I think that transforming the tunnel into a modern catacomb, or burial site, offers a strong commentary on modern life. What places are sacred?

Here are some pictures that my friend took as we were walking through the catacombs (just for reference/comparison):

http://thekjas.info/Photography/P.%20Digital/Europe/catacombs.jpg

http://thekjas.info/Photography/P.%20Digital/Europe/catacombhallrefractlight.jpg

emma-b said...

sorry- the last part of that link got cut off. After "Europe" it's:

/catacombhallrefractlight.jpg