Here are some iPhone applications dedicated to graffiti where you can tag using the tips of your fingers on a digital touch screen – just one more advancement in graffiti technology.
This article was originally posted in February 2010 on FatCap's French site. The translation was done for you by FatCap Editorial Assistant Jacqui M; some references to newer articles since the original publication were added.
It has been three years since we discovered the first graffiti application for the iPhone. This application, called Fat Tag, allowed you to tag on a color screen (up to 3 colors of your choice) with a beveled point. This version was already pretty fun, with automatic colors that added to its charm. Recently, the Fat Tag creators have come out with a new and improved version of the application in collaboration with Katsu, a New York vandal known for his tags done with a fire extinguisher.
The Fat Tag Deluxe Katsu edition offers several colors, multiple backgrounds and different pen/brush tips. Now we get to start playing with and varying the style. The movement is still natural and pretty close to the real thing. It’s an ideal application for killing the time in a waiting room or elsewhere.
The open source lab F.A.T (Free Art and Technology) isn’t done surprising us yet. They recently added an adaptation to the application that uses a long-range projector. The tags you create can also be overlapped onto entire buildings in the same way that Graffiti Research Lab showed us with their laser graffiti three years ago in the middle of New York.
An Encyclopedia of Styles
The latest newcomer to the world of graffiti applications is the program “Graffiti Analysis.” If you went to the exhibition Born in the Streets at the Cartier Foundation in Paris, then you definitely noticed an animation showing tags in 360 degree relief. This impressive application takes the same idea, dissecting and analyzing the motion of graffiti.
Evan Roth, the originator of the project, took the idea so far as to make the application record, analyze and list the tags in a data base in GML (Graffiti Markup Language) format, the new digital standard that propels all of the latest digital applications centered around graffiti. The website for Graffiti Analysis describes this new language as “a specifically formatted XML file designed to be a common open structure for archiving gestural graffiti motion data into a text file.” In layman’s terms, this technological development anticipates numerous innovations in material lettering and digital animation as well as the decomposition of styles.
Graffiti legends such as Seen, Jonone, Ketone, and Twist have already archived their lettering. What Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant did for archiving graffiti in video and film, Graffiti Analysis is doing for archiving graffiti in code. We’ll let time tell if it will be successful. [Editor's Note: Please find other articles written on Evan Roth's projects: Eye Writer and Graffiti Analysis]
Graffiti Analysis is an open source project available on OSX, Windows, and Linux.
Here’s a video of the project and for more information, check out Graffiti Analysis’ website.
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For all the tech amateurs, here’s a selection of videos and articles that treat the blending of graffiti and technology. If you know of any other projects, don’t hesitate to contact us or to add your comments.
(US) Eye Writer
(US) Sweatshoppe
Tanto está no contexto artístico, como no contexto de multimédia
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