Lefebvre's Ideas about Social Space Imply a Re-Evaluation of the Role of Graffiti in the Politics of City and Urban Life - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages There exists a long history of various cultures leaving symbols and writings of their experiences from the age of the Pharaoh’s Pyramids to Hadrian’s Wall, the Byzantium Empire, and the middle ages. However, it is only half a century ago when graffiti started being linked to the culture of the urban youth as well as the political beliefs of the social movements of the 1960s. Graffiti writers from New York and Philadelphia began to create new and innovative styles with new materials and writing styles. They also made use of increasing spaces in the urban areas. Graffiti soon grew to be a global phenomenon. It is now a common sight in numerous urban areas all over the world. It adorns or disfigures public areas, depending on the viewpoint of the person analysing the works. Graffiti has sometimes been viewed as a disfigurement of the city walls. However, many people simply consider it is a modern way used by the youth to express their viewpoints. Henri Lefebvre separated space into three groups: representations of space, spatial practice, and representational space. According to his ideas, every piece of art that is included in the public space will slowly integrate itself into that space, and frequently ends up being a part of that very public space in such a way that it cannot be separated from that place. The import of public art lies in the fact that the more it is integrated, the more effectual the public space will be made, and then both its functional and representative aspects are confirmed. Its importance is also found in its political as well as activist functions, since public art usually denotes the significance of public space. Any work of art that is in the public space tends to acquire its significance when it is recognised as a part of the public. The art works that created in and for the public space, for instance graffiti, are the types of artwork that take into account the framework of urban. They are deemed to be a part of the civic realm as they are meant for the public spaces as well as the citizens of the location in which they were created. In that sense, they cannot be differentiated from their public spaces, where by integrating themselves in the public space, they create the identity of that area. It is a common thing for citizens who live near areas that are filled with graffiti start to identify the area by the different drawings on the public walls. The aspect of the ‘lived’ dealt with the third branch of Lefebvre’s triad in comprehending the social space, where he associates it with the representational space. The representational space speaks to the more unstructured and intimate interactions of citizens in its surroundings. Whereas human interventions such as graffiti are delineate the connection that the citizens have with their capital, the theory of Lefebvre’s triad goes further in illuminating that the notion of ‘lived’ has an inclination of going to the scheme of non-verbal symbols. In that sense, Lefebvre affirmed that this concept stimulates the imaginations that citizens who view them have about themselves (Zukin, 1995). Lefebvre’s theory explored new methods of comprehending of the prevailing procedures of urbanisation, as well as the conditions and outcomes on any scale of the public reality; whether from the operations of daily life, through the municipal scale, to the international flows of capital, people, ideas, and information (Lefebvre, 1996). Concurrently, this premise has the potential to connect urban design and research operations because of its programmatic investigation of the connection between the critique of urbanism, the urban study, and the visualisation of a new kind of ...Download file to see next pagesRead More