I recall a time when I could look at a wall of graffiti and either see a political message that the present government (at the time of writing) were generally bad uncaring people, good reasons to think the french are cunts or some kid pretending to be straight outta Compton.
Oh how I miss those care free days.
Now that the stencil revolution has become an "art form" or an amerging advertising medium depending on which goods and services are launching this week, when looking at a wall covered in graffiti I now have to think "is boost mobile having a special or is this here just to be disruptiv?"
Of course at some point somebody's gonna strike back against those ad-buster wise advertisers and it appears (in wellington at least) a random bunch of words that make a barely coherrent sentence is leading the charge! But the problem with gobblygook on a wall is that you're left wondering is this just random crap or a message from some ARG, should I go home and google it just to be sure? (Not that we're likely to ever see an ARG in New Zealand for at least 5 years).
Will we see a renaissance of "Wanna good time, call M on 395-XXXX" and "Killroy was here" style graffiti on the back seat of buses and the inside of toliet stalls? I hope so,
In New York -- whose subway trains in particular have been "tattooed" with an energy to put our own rude practitioners to shame -- not an inch of free space is spared except that of advertisements.