Photo: Ludo Dawney
Ludo Dawney | Staff Writer
When most people think about journalism, they think interviews with politicians, reporting from disaster zones, or Magnum images of ragged children in warzones. They probably don’t think of someone sitting in a cubicle in a library toilet, snapping pictures of scrawled graffiti – ‘Drop Acid, Not Grades’ – on his iPhone as journalism.
The word ‘graffiti’ is so broad that it can apply to street art as well as scribbles on a toilet wall. The only requisite, it seems, is illegality. I wondered if there were any meanings or themes that united the people engaged in it, and if their goals had anything in common. Were, I wondered, those remarks on the bog wall, with comments and threads underneath, some kind of missing link – the microcosmic, grubby, early prototype for the internet chatroom?
As someone takes off the lid of a Sharpie in the student toilet, I presume they have decided on what to write. But, they will never know who or how many will see it, only that they will be a male student. The audience will never know who has written it unless it is signed, which it hardly ever is. The anonymity removes all self-censorship from the individuals involved, creating a situation not dissimilar from many internet comments sections. Does this create an insight into the thoughts of male students? Well, maybe not the next exhibit. A creative but somewhat immature chap asked his fellow students to describe their faeces in terms of movie titles. Their entries included: Lord Of The Rings, Dark Knight Rises, Stuck On You, Stranger Than Fiction, Taken, The Killer Inside Me, Space Jam, Forrest Dump, and Close Encounter Of The Turd Kind. Fantastic, Flubber, Black Beauty, My Cistern’s Keeper, The Green Mile,The Towering Inferno.
Other humorous quips include the message on almost every tissue dispenser saying: ‘Arts degree. Please take one’. Other writings, though, were mainly either concerned with sex, relationships or homosexuality. Perhaps this is due to the exclusively male contributors, and I have heard that female toilets contain more relationship advice and insecurities. The ad for Niteline often receives comments referencing rape and containing sexual imagery. The only purpose of these ramblings are to ‘entertain’ people while they do their business.
Sneaking out at night with a spray can and a ladder requires more effort, and is given more thought. Graffiti seen in public places usually contains a political or social commentary. Walking towards the center of town on the right side of the Liffey, there is a large painting of a Heinz bottle with the logo removed and replaced with ‘People, Not Labelz’.
Slave Labour, by the Bristolian Banksy, appeared on the wall of a Poundland in Wood Green, London. Most of his work is resigned to being covered by a thick layer of paint. This one, however, showed up in a Miami auction, for half a million pounds. The same council that would have usually sponsored the bucket of paint that would have brushed the stencil out of existence actually began a campaign to bring it back. At the eleventh hour, the piece was withdrawn.
I was probably the first person to document the writings on the toilet walls. It was not worth the self-consciousness I felt, assuming at any minute that someone would question my puzzling behavior. The photos taken are worthless. The reason why Banksy is so famous, and his works are of such high value, is he imparts wit and intelligence into his works, something that people frequenting the third floor of the Arts Block do not. On the back of a book of his art, it says:
‘There’s no way you’re getting a quote from us’ – Metropolitan Police
