This work focuses on a possibility of using current computer vision alghoritms and methods for automatic similarity matching of so called graffiti tags. Those are such graffiti, that are used as a fast and simple signature of their authors. The process of development and implementation of CBIR system, which is created for this task, is described. For the purposes of finding images similarity, local features are used, most notably self-similarity features.

Cities are increasingly becoming vessels of consumption, while various opportunities for production of space and public expression are taken away from the city's inhabitants. New architectural interventions often disregard a site's previously developed character and further aid in wiping away memories closely related to a city's cultural past. Banja Luka, the second largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, has been an important cultural center, even through years of unrest. Within the city's main plaza stands an unfinished concrete structure (Fig. 3), built with pre-war conceptions of a hotel. The structure's location within the city of Banja Luka has provided for a close connection with the city's inhabitants and has allowed them to relate to it directly on a daily basis. The city's youth has left traces of artistic expression on this structure; its interface with the countercultures of graffiti artists and skateboarders has created a unique testament of time which desires continued narration. With the post-war privatization of most properties within the city, and the increasing desire to live within the city center, construction cranes are appearing throughout the city's core, providing new residential towers and a high increase in places for consumption. The opportunities for production of space, for places where memories are preserved and created, are decreasing and threaten to affect the thesis site. Completion of the project as initially envisioned would disregard the existing interactive relationship established between the city's inhabitants and the structure. The beauty of artistic expression cultivated upon the structure longs to be preserved and augmented in order to enable the structure's autonomy. Recognition of the value of the existing built elements and the site's overall character is essential and requires purposeful evaluation in the unification process of the new and existing elements. The redefined space will become a monument to the activities which have echoed at the site through some of the toughest times the city's youth had to endure. "...the notion of monument I have sought to put forward here is bound up with the lingering resonance of poetry after it has been heard, with the recollection of architecture after it has been seen." (Solà-Morales Rubió, Ignasi and Sarah Whiting. Differences: Topographies of Contemporary Architecture (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1997), 71.) The old and new will become individual halves of one self, united as they continue to play.

Drawing from de Certeau (1984), in this thesis I investigate graffiti and street art as part of the everyday visual landscapes. The city of Stockholm has gone from zero tolerance towards all forms of street art to now including the art form as a strategy for creating a so-called attractive city. In this thesis, I aim to examine street art and graffiti in relation to Stockholm´s mobile landscapes. The theoretical framework builds on mobility and landscape theory. I argue that if we are to better understand the world we live in, the concepts of mobility must be understood both in terms of its physical and social implications (Cresswell, 2006). Using a qualitative approach, interviews, document analysis, and ethnographic methods have been used to gather data. By analysing discourses and statements by artists, officials, and housing companies, I demonstrate how graffiti and street art moves between different expressions in Stockholm. Furthermore, I discuss the perspectives of artists who are engaged with their bodies to produce the visual landscape we live in, and how their bodily mobilities affect the outcome of the landscape of Stockholm. I argue that there is a paradox between mobility and immobility in the use of street art to create safe environments. The positioning of these concepts as opposites reveals how Stockholm stad and housing companies use the mobile in graffiti and street art, to create something static, attachment to place. This thesis thereby contributes to the societal and academic debate concerning mobility and the understanding of how the visual landscape is created.

Within curatorial practice, graffiti has come to little attention. On the occasion of the street art hype during the 2000s, graffiti appeared only as a minor component. Considering, that graffiti remains an undefined and mostly illegal and uninstitutionalized practice, the fact that it is not a common exhibition topic seems self-evident. However, graffiti is a globally and publicly present form of visual output and communication which upon closer look reveals conceptual depth and complexity. Therefore, this thesis investigates illegal graffiti in urban space and the possibility of curatorial approaches. Using the theoretical framework of Henri Lefebvre’s writings on the city, graffiti in urban space is conceptualized and analyzed. Possible readings and understandings of graffiti are highlighted. On the basis of such, past curatorial practices with and research on graffiti are outlined and discussed. Finally, the thesis aims to establish an understanding of graffiti as an institution of its own. For a productive curatorial approach to graffiti, an awareness of that division is considered crucial.

With a background in ceramics and graphic designI have developed my thoughts about craft as a combination of verbal and nonverbal communication, but in textiles. With the written word as one of my main materials this project looks into class and material hierarchies filtered through autofictivestories from my life. This paper explores themes that impact my decisions in the making process, choosing materials, motifs, texts and words, politics and poetry. It deals with all the information I push into patchworking, shirring, tufting and sculpting textiles, with the goal to paint a picture of an often unwanted section of society. To discuss this I have chosen references dealing with sloppy craft, text based art, graffiti and craft traditions, in a mix with news articles and economy. Through all parts of the project I am on balancing line between chaos and perfection, truth and fiction.

I denna uppsats undersöks gymnasieungdomars attityder till klotter i skolmiljö. I studien har 20 gymnasieelever från två olika skolor och gymnasieprogram intervjuats, och som komplement till intervjustudien har observationer genomförts på de båda skolorna. Observationsstudien visar att skolmiljöerna är så gott som rena från klotter. Resultatet av intervjustudien visar att en majoritet av informanterna är negativt inställda till klotter. De betraktar fenomenet som skadegörelse mer än som en form av kommunikation. Svaren bör ses mot bakgrund av att de flesta av de intervjuade är tjejer, och skolorna finns i två mindre och relativt välbärgade kommuner. Tidigare forskning visar att klotter främst lockar killar och unga män i storstadsmiljöer (Sundell m.fl. 2002). De killar som ingår i studien uppvisar en mer positiv inställning till klotter än tjejerna. Vidare visar resultatet skillnader beroende på vilket program eleverna läser. De elever som ger uttryck för en mer positiv syn på klotter som en form av kommunikation läser Media- och produktionsprogrammet. Enligt tidigare forskning om klotter och synen på klotter i olika miljöer (Rodriguez &Clair 1999, Kohn 2004) är en central del i klotter att kommunikationsformen är anonym och saknar de regler som finns i vanligt skrift- och talspråk. Just anonymiteten beskriver informanterna som central för klottrande. På frågan om informanterna tror att det fysiska klottret idag kan har ersatts av till exempel sociala medier ger studien inget entydigt svar. Gymnasieeleverna framhåller att klotter hör ihop med ålder. Flera beskriver klotter som vanligare på högstadiet än på gymnasiet.

The last seven years have been a transformation point for graffiti and street art in Jordan. Due to the constant inequality that women face in Jordan, graffiti and street artists grabbed the first opportunity presented to them in order to address these issues, when the Baladk Street Art Festival took place in the capital of Jordan, Amman. They used this festival as an opportunity to spread awareness and tell stories related to inequality as well as claim their rights. Resistance from conservative groups in the society towards these murals resulted in more restrictions from the municipality about the content of them. However, artists did not back up and fought their way to keep their art on the city’s walls, but they had to work harder in order to disguise the messages they wished to send to the public. Social change was used as the main concept to follow in this thesis in order to arrive at a conclusion that shows the change that had taken place in Jordan due to graffiti and street art, especially social change regarding ideas and social movements as well as political processes. In order to get the people’s, the municipality’s and artists’ perspectives, qualitative methods were used such as interviews and a survey. Results showed that the municipality's position on the effects of graffiti and street on the society as well as the strict regulations are partially the same. In the meantime, interviews with artists and the survey showed the struggle the artists go through when painting and also the change in the people’s behavior that occurred in the last seven years, from the start of the project until now. The survey’s results showed that most of the people understood the exact meaning of the murals and some respondents interpreted the messages according to their experiences. Therefore, it was concluded that graffiti and street art can serve as a prospective tool to drive social change in the Jordanian society, yet not solitarily. Different aspects, such as people’s behavior, shifting norms as well as a change in laws and policies need to work hand in hand in order to achieve the desired change and cause a social and cultural evolution.

I detta arbete undersöks niondeklassares attityder gentemot bildämnet, graffiti samt den illegala aspekten av graffiti. Graffiti är ett visuellt uttryck vars vara eller icke vara i skolans bildämne är omdebatterat. I förhållande till Jan Thavenius (2003) resonemang om skolans rädsla för att införliva en radikal estetik i undervisningen framstår graffiti som ämnesstoff som en välkommen didaktisk utmaning. Skeptiker menar dock att undervisning kring graffiti i skolan riskerar att uppmuntra illegalt klottrande. Med utgångspunkts i didaktikens vad-fråga reds en del av denna problematik ut. Texten syftar dels mot att undersöka om ungdomar uppfattar graffiti som ett meningsfullt fenomen. Med litteraturens definition av graffiti, en exkluderande, extremt sluten subkultur, tycks detta långt ifrån självklart. Utifrån en andra frågeställning undersöks dessutom huruvida infölivandet av graffiti i bildundervisningen påverkar elevernas attityder till dess illegala aspekt. I arbetet redovisas resultaten av en kvantitativ enkätundersökning, genomförd vid två olika skolor i södra Sverige. En analys av dessa visar att graffiti fungerar bra som svar på didaktikens vad-fråga. Niondeklassare uppfattar graffiti som ett meningsfullt fenomen – vilket i förlängningen kan ha potential att motivera dem i deras lärande. I arbetet konstateras dessutom att undervisning kring graffiti tycks påverka elevernas syn på dess illegala aspekt, men på så sätt att de i.o.m. undervisningen blir mer benägna att ta avstånd från illegal graffiti.

This thesis analyzes the ways in which Banksy’s street art installations are used to critique sociopolitical injustices. The street has long existed as a platform for social and political movements. In particular, street art offers unique opportunities for voicing criticisms in pioneering ways that have been proven successful in upsetting normative power structures. Anne Theresa Demo’s analysis on the Guerilla Girls’ comic politics of subversion offers an appropriate conceptual lens to analyze Banksy’s employment of perspectives by incongruity as strategies for subversion. Therefore, this thesis analyzes how Banksy’s subversive satire is rhetorical by examining three techniques that have successfully exposed hegemonic institutions: mimicry, revision, and juxtaposition. Further, I argue that Banksy’s street art gallery, Better Out Than In, utilized these techniques in a global, revolutionary manner to bolster access and widen audience participation. Banksy’s street art both spotlights contemporary injustices and provides a frame to interpret the artist’s critical perspectives. By analyzing the ways in which Banksy uses satire as subversion, this thesis illustrates how visual rhetoric can offer liberation for victims of sociopolitical injustice.

This thesis is a critical ethnographic exploration of Philadelphia graffiti as radical citizens’ media, and how the graffiti community is impacted by digital new media in regard to identity, social connection, and commodification. Previous research explores the traditions and practices that are specific to the Philadelphia graffiti community and how the medium affords transformative agency to practitioners, but existing research does not sufficiently explore how this subculture has been impacted by digitality and social media. Through both interviews with Philadelphia based graffiti writers and a critical virtual ethnography of local graffiti archives on Instagram, I explore the following research questions: How may graffiti be used as a form of transgressive, radical citizens’ media to challenge hegemony and elicit alternative imaginaries of resistance? How has the local Philadelphia graffiti scene integrated Instagram to their graffiti practices and community? I argue that graffiti contributes to both the urban physical landscape, but also the digital mediascape, specifically on the social media platform Instagram and as a medium has unique affordances that empower writers for social change. Further, I also argue that social media has influenced how graffiti is practiced, documented, and culturally received while also expanding opportunities for social change and community building. / Media Studies & Production