What is Street Art?

Urban spaces where street art is conventionally displayed can be regarded as 

"cultural fields and texts [...] that affect the community" (Visconti et al 512).

In order to convey political or social messages effectively, street art works through three different phenomena related to the field of visual culture...

1) Appropriation

2) Interpellation

3) Democratization

Street art is a powerful tool in visual culture that encourages or effects political discourse 

through critical, innovate content and creative public display of graffiti and public art.

Cultural Appropriation

According to Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright in Practices of Looking,

"Cultural appropriation is the process of 'borrowing' and changing the meaning of cultural products, slogans, images, or elements of fashion (83)." 

This short video explores how street artists such as Banksy undergo the 

process of appropriating images that belong to specific 

cultural and historical contexts.

Street Art: "Napalm"

Artist: Banksy

Appropriated Images

The young girl from Huynh Cong Ut's 'Children fleeing a Napalm strike' 

photograph taken during the Vietnam War. 

Two of the most recognizable American commercial figures... 

Mickey Mouse

Ronald McDonald

Appropriation artists use specific 'texts of art or popular culture' to 

communicate a political message (Sturken and Cartwright 82).

Banksy's Napalm uses guerilla tactis which aims for corporate sabotage (Chaffee 81).

What if we were to appropriate images within an original text?

How is the meaning of the original text affected?

According to Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright,

The process of interpreting appropriated images is the continuous negotiation 

of new and previously attributed meanings (84).

Certeau's "poaching" concept is relevant to Banksy's illustration because its new meaning is somewhat influenced on the meanings derived from the original texts (84).

Sources:

Chaffee, Lyman G. Political Protest and Street Art: Popular Tools for Democratization in Hispanic Countries. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1993. Print.

Sturken, Marita and Lisa Cartwright. Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture. Oxford University Press. New York: 2009. Print.

Interpellation

as defined in Practices of Looking...

And to 'hail' means to...

A few examples of graffiti/street art in Montreal...

But there is a darker side to the process of street art interpellating viewers...

This section of the article argues that all instances of street art and graffiti art interpellating audiences qualifies – on some level – as harassment or oppression on the basis that the root definitions of the word ‘interpellation’ relate to notions about interfering with a person’s general discourse.

Lauren Rosewarne implies that street art’s interpellation qualifies as harassment!

This idea of street art “harassing” public spectators parallels strongly with the traditional meaning of the term “interpellation”…

In fact, street art is even relevant to Louis Althusser’s definition of ‘interpellation’…

“I shall then suggest that ideology ‘acts’ or ‘functions’ in such a way that it ‘recruits’ subjects among the individuals (it recruits them all), or ‘transforms’ the individuals into subjects (it transforms them all) by that very precise operation which I have called interpellation or hailing”

- Louis Althusser

Street art hails to viewers as individuals rather than solely targeting specific social groups…

The following images are clear cases of interpellation on account of how their authors hailed to different demographics with relatively simplistic expressions of bigotry…

What makes the interpellation-process of street art especially unique is how it ties with the general definition of ‘harassment’…

Democratization of Space and Street Art

The Democratization of Space and Street Art from Yasemin Bozorgmand on Vimeo.

POTHOLE CARICATURES - URA.RU
YEKATERINBURG (Russia)

Certain art cannot be given it's intended meaning without the help of 'the street'.

Street art can relate to similar situations in different countries.

e.g.: something as simple as wanting the government to fix our potholes.

"UNTITLED" - Aung

YANGON (Myanmar)

Street art is another medium for artists.

Amateur artists now have a canvas to work on that is accessible to everyone.

MURALS IN THE CANADIAN ARCTIC - Unknown

IQALUIT (Nunavut)

Street art is a way for minority groups and artists to leave their mark in a society.

MODERN TIENANMEN SQUARE STREET MURAL - A. SignL

COLOGNE (Germany)

The digitization of art allows for a widespread of images and works from other cultures that in turn
can be borrowed from other artists around the world.