Street Art: the discourse, as begun by Susan Farrell; continued by…?

Some of you may be aware of Susan Farrell, an academic out of the West Coast (U. of Oregon) who has been a champion of street art. If not, you should be!
She’s well spoken and sincere; ready to be clear about what she knows about her subject—and what she doesn’t. Her enthusiasm for her subject—Graffiti, known by its practitioners simply as “writing”—is palpable.

I guess I’ve caught it, too.

Farrell came along at a fertile time for the Internet (1994) and has since made a lifework out of archiving and collecting street images from all over the world; she did this as her final project for a Masters Degree she was getting in Information Technology at the time. People who love graffiti and graffiti artists themselves joined the effort, posting their own images. The sites that have resulted and that come down to us now are loosely organized, cryptically documented (largely out of respect for the privacy of the graffiti practitioners, and to respect their authorship (along with the legal issues surrounding that)), and, in my opinion, rather inscrutable. Some of the links from the ’90s are just plain broken or dead. It’s like walking down a sidestreet; suddenly, you can’t find the address you wanted. Farrell’s efforts, which you can find by Googling ‘art crimes’ provides you with a helpful list of links though (graffiti.org). Just don’t get surprised if you get diverted to newer sites that are highly commercial, or peppered with ads. Of course, there are some awesome ones out there, including whole, Flickr-like networks just devoted to street Writing.

But somehow, something’s missing.

IMHO: street art deserves a discourse it’s not getting.

It’s own discourse. The time has come.

from www.myspace.com/truckhunterz

(Bates video originally found on site 12ozProphet, via StreetCrimes. thanx.)