ICN...art or just visual piss? (1 Viewer)

Art or visual piss - i mean thats an aesthetic call. ICN appears to stand for Incognitos, while the standard ICN may not be the most awe inspiring site, the taggers that seem to be part of it as a collective such as Grift, Drop and Rise have rather striking pieces all over the city. UEK just irritates me, there are some nice UE's across town, but I'd don't know if they are related. They irritate me because drinking cans on the board walk over the summer, this slob of a teenager dragged himself by us spraying "UEK" in barely legible writing across the benches, with a bag of cans in the free hand.

Whatever about the aesthetics, at least the taggers don't offer any pretension. Thats the deviding line in Dublin it would seem. The taggers just do. Then you have the likes of Asbestos and Frankenstyles who put up about five pieces around town and are lauded as street art geniuses. The reality is, their work has been up in galleries/shows more than it has been on the street. And if you are going to privilege your "art" with some subversive association, then christ you have to admire the sheer audacity and producitivity of these taggers. Imagine if they were spraying political slogans instead of boosting their own egos?

Has anyone got a link to the defastenist debate on here? I accidently ended up in one of their exhibitions at the Convergence Festival a few months ago; the idea of drunk childern with far too many crayons quickly came into my head. Sub-situationist shitehawks.
 
Bag'o'cans said:
I'm getting pretty tired of bansky to be honest, some of it's good but....... mmm. I've seen alot better, seems to just have made a name for himself.

He has made a name for himself, but I love the cleverness of the stuff. Examples of the "better" pls (will settle for anything good, though)
 
what's up with kids buying / printing out banksy stencils and spraying them up around town? ohhh rioter throwing some flowers gotccchya
 
Al Katraz said:
That was freaking me out too. ICN and UEK. Maybe they're the same person. I don't care that it's there - it's a lot better than a load of ads for Guinness or Vodafone - but I'd like to know what they stand for. Anybody?

ICN and UEK are graffitti crews. Grift is part of one(can't remember which one) and Drop another well featured tag around the city is also part of one. I like some of there stuff but some great pieces have been painted over on the Luas line to Sandyford.
 
MONDOBRUTALE said:
what's up with kids buying / printing out banksy stencils and spraying them up around town? ohhh rioter throwing some flowers gotccchya
All part of the reason i'm bored of him. When the 45 year old bints in the office send emails of his stuff, then he's boooooring.
 
Antrophe said:


Perfect! Thanks dude. It's great to finally know that ICN means Incognitos.

Ok, perhaps deciding whether or not to call it "art" is as you say an aesthetic call, but to be honest it's not really the side of the debate I'm interested in, it was just a catchy title for my thread. However: to hopefully nail that one, does calling it art confer it with some kind of dignity? Is it now a justified act? No!
I've read very little about this stuff but it seems to me that calling it art is giving it a credibility it does not deserve. Calling bad tagging art, and I'm open to correction on this one, gives it an oppositional place in a counter-cultural dialogue. Why should it have this place? What
does it say? To my mind it contributes nothing to any artistic dialogue, and consequently it has not earned its place, and therefore it is not art, leaving aside for a moment the aesthetic judgements which might allow it to be called "art".

Now for the aesthetic judgement: Anyone who finds these things aesthetically pleasing is mad.

I certainly agree that the individual ICN pieces are "striking". Not good enough. "Striking" is a bad punk band. There are too many bad punk bands, there should be fewer, please stop.
Having thought about it some more since yesterday I think the reason tagging like the ICN stuff is done at all is because it must be quite an adrenaline rush to get away with something like that right under the noses of the law, man.

"at least the taggers don't offer any pretension"
Ok, I see what you're saying, but that is not a justification. That sounds like something one would say to a jaded art-critic hack who needs to find the next Brit-Art explosion in before the sunday supplements go to print.

Much more to say on this, but time is not my friend today! Hope the debate continues!

BBB
 
Having reviewed what I've written, I should add that I'm not talking about all tagging, just the ICN UEK type stuff that gets put up round town.

I'm dust.
 
On the aesthetic debate, personally to anyone outside of a particular sub-culture, everything within it smells of the same shite. Take hardcore, the differences between a lot of these bands on an aesthetic level is pretty minute..same goes for a lot of genres. The point is that those participating in the creation of the cultural products :)rolleyes: at self) within these domains do not seek validation for their work outside of their peer circle, unless of course they are striving to break out of their original culture. So tagging is loaded with signs and codes that none of us who stand outside of it can fully grasp. Apparently, a tag done in three colours and beautifully articulated has as much value as a scratch on a Luas window done with a key if the hierarchy of taggers is gauged by coverage. Tagging is the act of writing your name on the city, quality doesn't matter.

The fact that so few people know what ICN means points to the fact that they do not seek recognition from outside their own subcultural mileu. I think there is a huge irony in this to be honest. While street art along the Banksy lines actually speaks outwards in codes and images every one can understand, the artists always breech their annonymity (spelling?) by achieving cult like status. Where in contrast in tagging, something criticised as the ego driven mad, the references are entirely internal to the culture itself and the artist retains absolute annonymity from any potential broader fame. I'm sure some of that is bollox, if you were to seriously have a look at both cultures, but among people Im know who profess to like street art it definitely is true.
 
I really dont understand how people get so worked up about seeing seeing tags around town.
Personally i feel all street art,wether its a banksy stencil or someone initials done with a shitty marker,helps brake the monotony of endless brick walls and billboards.
For me its more the act itself of illegally painting your name thats appealing,wether or not your work has an aesthetic value is secondry...(imho,i know people will disagree and i can understand why)

..by the way,UEK stands for underground elements krew(theres a few other meanings aswell),I used to be in them a few years back.
 
paul- said:
I really dont understand how people get so worked up about seeing seeing tags around town.
Personally i feel all street art,wether its a banksy stencil or someone initials done with a shitty marker,helps brake the monotony of endless brick walls and billboards.
For me its more the act itself of illegally painting your name thats appealing,wether or not your work has an aesthetic value is secondry...(imho,i know people will disagree and i can understand why)

..by the way,UEK stands for underground elements krew(theres a few other meanings aswell),I used to be in them a few years back.
ever consider that people don't like it because it just looks shit?

ps i'll be round later to express myself on your sitting room wall. cool.
 
pete said:
ever consider that people don't like it because it just looks shit?
Yeah,I suppose...in that persons opinion.
Which is no more valid than the person who did its opinion.

I can respect both.
 
i like seeing graf around the place, but only when it's actually artistic. I see nothing artistic in just tagging anywhere and everywhere. It's just boring at this stage. I wish there were more "proper" pieces of grafitti around the city as opposed to crappy tags everywhere you look.

And also, death to the fucking prickhole who created the idea of tagging stickers and then putting them everywhere. Lame!!! If you're gonna do something, don't do it half-assed.
 
paul- said:
Yeah,I suppose...in that persons opinion.
Which is no more valid than the person who did its opinion.

I can respect both.
sorry, but that's bollocks. 95% of dublin "graffiti" is worth as much respect as any amount of "deco loves sharon" scrawls. it's just mindless vandalism.
 
pete said:
sorry, but that's bollocks. 95% of dublin "graffiti" is worth as much respect as any amount of "deco loves sharon" scrawls. it's just mindless vandalism.
Ahhh!You sound like your parents should.
 
Paul, Antrophe,

(random reconstructions of a post I lost a few minutes ago, hope it makes sense)
I sympathise with the argument about the sub-culture being impenetrable to the non-participant, having grown up listening to punk and metal.
I also find it interesting that a tag consisting of sometimes as few as seven or eight swipes of a spray can contain codes and references. Can you enlighten me further by giving an example of how this might work? If that doesn't involve breaking any group trust. I mean I can see the hand of at least two different people working on the ICN stuff but if there are references being made, then I'm missing them.

Is that true about coverage being one of the most important things? If so it's inadvertantly quite the fuck-you to the sizeable amount of people in the city who don't understand the game being played and don't understand or sympathise with tagging.

Yes, a crappy wall on an abandoned rail siding is brightened up by a really good tag, but when an old building made of Portland stone is permanently damaged by a quick tag because the stone has to be ground down to remove the paint, that is pretty crap.
Also, I don't think that tags break the monotony of the city, if anything they further homogenise the city...no matter what part of the inner city you're in, you see the same two names over and over and over...

Are you saying that it's the kid who shouts loudest and for longest who will make the best tagger? Is that IT?
 
paul- said:
Ahhh!You sound like your parents should.

Man, seriously, that isn't how an argument is won. I'm really interested in hearing about how all this stuff works.

Also: The person who did it has no regard for the observer's opinion, would that be fair to say? And the person who did it has made quite a visible intevention into how the city looks. So comparing the tagger's opinion with the observer's opinion is like comparing apples and oranges.
BBB
 
paul- said:
Ahhh!You sound like your parents should.
no, i sound like your parents should.

nobody asked some prick to spraypaint the side wall of trinity. i've a lot more appreciation for this city's architecture than i do for some kids ego.
 
Burgerbarbaby said:
Paul, Antrophe,

(random reconstructions of a post I lost a few minutes ago, hope it makes sense)
I sympathise with the argument about the sub-culture being impenetrable to the non-participant, having grown up listening to punk and metal.
I also find it interesting that a tag consisting of sometimes as few as seven or eight swipes of a spray can contain codes and references. Can you enlighten me further by giving an example of how this might work? If that doesn't involve breaking any group trust. I mean I can see the hand of at least two different people working on the ICN stuff but if there are references being made, then I'm missing them.

Is that true about coverage being one of the most important things? If so it's inadvertantly quite the fuck-you to the sizeable amount of people in the city who don't understand the game being played and don't understand or sympathise with tagging.

Yes, a crappy wall on an abandoned rail siding is brightened up by a really good tag, but when an old building made of Portland stone is permanently damaged by a quick tag because the stone has to be ground down to remove the paint, that is pretty crap.
Also, I don't think that tags break the monotony of the city, if anything they further
the city...no matter what part of the inner city you're in, you see the same two names over and over and over...

Are you saying that it's the kid who shouts loudest and for longest who will make the best tagger? Is that IT?
1.OK...em,your first point about secret codes and references is lost on me.
Thats not to say it dosent occur,its just something ive never heard of.??
and the reason you see different people at work behind ICN is simply because ICN is a crew,consisting of various members all representing those three letters.

2.In regard to quantity over quality,there is no answer to that.For a crew like UEK the emphasis is obviously on quantity but for another Irish crew like TDA whos members have been involved in the graffiti scene for upwards of 10 years the emphasis usually moves onto quality.Basically,it depends on the writer and which he or she values more.

3.When it comes to what to tag and what not to tag there is an unwritten law(although it has probably been published a bunch of times) amongst writers not to tag things like gravestones,places of worships,houses...for me this would extend to other things like walls made from Portland stone among others but again,its up to a writer what he will and will not tag,I dont think im in any position to make up someones mind for them on whats right or wrong.

4.Tags homogenising the city?I find that concept to absurd to even regard.

5.And what makes the best tagger?...your analogy was pretty good.
 

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