article shane walter, onedotzero director, about the street scrawls for stirred up magazine

The streets are littered with original literature. If you are not blinded or too jaded, look beyond the adman’s commercial onslaught, media messages, visual overload and ‘official’ street paraphernalia – there is so much more to see. The street is an art gallery – in the case of Banksy’s work, a pricey one where people are trying to chip away at early stencils to take a chunk of his art home with them for free rather than pay the hundreds of thousands that he now commands. His work is the tip of the Street Art iceberg, with a variety of artists vying for the attention of those that know where and how to look for it, from stencils to stickers, paste up to graffiti.

Take a dive deeper and you will find something more humble, direct – the form of original graffiti that has real urgency. These are the scrawled messages, slogans and ideas of the everyman. This literature of the street is a barometer of the day. Its strength and allure perhaps is its very ephemeral nature. It does not last – pasted over, cleaned off, scrubbed out or decayed and faded away – leaving a fresh page for the next scribbler. But it has impact and power none the less.

At its best it provides short sharp bursts of wit and incisive comment – nuggets of wisdom even. Take any area of an inner city today and you will find a plethora of street musings. The Hoxton and Shoreditch triangle in London’s East End, for example, is a mecca for urban culture but also has a vibrant scene of street scrawlers with unique messages who alert people to their thoughts and concerns. This is today’s news in written snapshots more valid than the vacuous water cooler moments of chitchat or cheap celebrity driven glossy mags. They may be the preoccupation of the few but they often reflect the sentiment of the masses.

These scribes are covert and underground by their nature and don’t have access to the mass media of newspapers or TV – even the internet and blogosphere is not the domain for them to share their sharp views. It is street culture from another more direct and human source, humble, local but with a passion to say something. The tools are low tech, certainly not digital but entirely functional and fit for purpose. The quills of choice are the spray can, stencil, chalk, pen or paint ready for easy and swift application for the delectation of the passer-by.

It’s the place to air personal grievances, political comments, angry rants, frustrated fears and calls to arms – always delivered with purpose and confidence. There is something quaint and almost medieval about the practice. I love the personal, almost inexplicable writings that at first leave you totally clueless to their meanings or motivations. But they stay with you, playing on and with your mind, resonating much longer that you would have thought possible. As one street writer puts it, “Gold in my head.”

To see more photos on this subject from shane walter visit: www.flickr.com/photos/szen_volta