October 22, 2008 Arts+Movies » Features

Without a Trace 

How Charleston is leading the way for graffiti’s next generation

by John Stoehr
Appetite for nondestruction: Street Level Lab demos
  • Kaitlyn Iserman
  • Appetite for nondestruction: Street Level Lab demos "laser tags" at Marion Square

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If you met Brian Muller and Zach Thomas at a coffee shop, as I did last week, you might not associate them with the gritty, subversive underworld of graffiti.

Muller, in a plain T-shirt and cargo shorts, is a student at MUSC. His interests are in the field of bioinformatics, which is where medicine and data-mining meet. Thomas, in a T-shirt, jeans, and black chunky Ray-Ban reading glasses, studies at the College of Charleston. He's picking up where he left off after seven years as a computer engineer.

"We're total nerds," Thomas says, wryly.

These nerds are on the vanguard of an art form as old as the pyramids. Using new technologies, they are spanning a divide between dialectic views of graffiti — one that says it's an art, one that it's vandalism.

In spanning this divide, Muller and Thomas are changing not just how graffiti is done but how we think about it.

They are, in essence, trying to forge a new sensibility among graff artists — from one that's illicit, solitary, and egocentric to one that's lawful, social, and egalitarian.

Though some graffiti is illegal, Muller says, it's still art. It needs to be preserved as a work of art before being whitewashed by a rightfully angry property owner.

So he and Thomas started Tag Record (www.tagrecord.com). They have cached hundreds of photographs of graffiti found around the city. Even graffiti long painted over has been given a new virtual existence.

Muller and Thomas believe in the rights of property owners. They also believe in the power of art. (In the case of graffiti, it has the power to monopolize our vision, forcing us to experience and reckon with it.)

By documenting all manner of street art, Muller and Thomas separate one from the other, celebrating the art form without endorsing or participating in vandalism.

But the website has done more than that. By creating an interactive forum, they say, they have elevated the quality of graffiti.

"Graffiti artists work in isolation, at night, and they don't know how they're being experienced by others," Muller says. "Now they know what people are thinking."

Perhaps graffiti is an expression of a primal human instinct. At its core is a spirit that longs for validation, that asserts in the face of uncertainty, tragedy, and doubt that "I was here." It says, with defiance: "I am."

Muller and Thomas say that they honor this spirit, that they believe in that spirit. But scrawling on a billboard is only one way to leave one's mark.

With so many new kinds of technology available to them, they decided to innovate new methods for leaving a mark on the world. But they also wanted to change how we think about leaving that mark.

From this came Street Level Lab (www.streetlevellab.com), a local collective that aims, according to its mission statement, to "create new open technology and free methods to assist in the creation and promotion of nondestructive street artwork."

One of these is software that Muller and Thomas affectionately call Blobber.

With Blobber, you can "laser tag" any flat surface. All you need is a computer, a light projector, a camera, and a laser pointer (or an empty spraypaint can affixed with LEDs, but that's another story).

The software tells the projector to follow the laser beam, leaving virtually any kind of mark you'd like. But unlike the old graffiti, laser tagging is gone when you're gone.

Muller and Thomas got the software from an open-source nonprofit in New York City called the Graffiti Research Lab. It didn't work the way they wanted it to. It would only run on Windows, and it was "bloated" with non-essentials like music and video. So they rewrote the program. Once perfected (they plan to release it later this year), Blobber can be used on any platform by anyone with the imagination to make it grow. The only stipulation is that it remain open-source, or free and available to be tinkered with.

Muller and Thomas agree Blobber is to graffiti what Wii is to video gaming.

It's simple and intuitive. It breaks down barriers of knowledge and culture. And it now features easy-to-use games similar to Pong and Space Invaders.

The biggest difference is that it's social.

Graffiti is done by all kinds of people for all kinds of reasons — artistic, subversive, criminal, insane. But what's constant is that it's done for the most part alone, in secret, and under cover of night.

With Blobber, graffiti and other kinds of street art can be more flexibly understood as a social act rooted in the pleasure of innovating and creating art with others. Muller and Thomas are already slated to "perform" at next month's Kulture Klash. They have applied for next year's Piccolo Spoleto, too.

"We want this to be for everyone," Muller says.

Why?

"Because it's awesome!"

Comments (17) RSS

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Brian,

Thanks for offering that clarification, but you didn't need to. The story is correct — as is.

Often people see nuanced omissions of fact that are not important to the telling of the story, but that they feel are important and should not have been omitted. They therefore conclude a correction is needed.

But "Without a Trace" does not.

This is natural. Everyone would like credit. When they don't get what they believe is rightfully theirs, envy inspires comments such as this.

If, however, CovertCodeOp1 and the rest of CSCLUG would like to get in touch and talk reasonably about their creative projects, I can be reached at stoehr@charlestoncitypaper.com.

There's no need for CSCLUG to undermine the attention being given to Street Level Lab in order to get attention for CSCLUG.

We can all talk about what we do. There's plenty of time and I'm interested in all kinds of art-making. —John Stoehr

Posted by John Stoehr on October 28, 2008 at 10:15 AM | Report this comment

In response to CovertCodeOp1-
1) The GRL code was written primarily for Windows (like its underlying library called openFrameworks). It is technically cross platform (for Mac and Linux as well) - but has not been tested for those platforms and does not seem well supported. You can find out more information at http://muonics.net/blog/index.php?postid=15 and http://www.openframeworks.cc .
2) Yes, but the name of the artist (the sole artist, in fact) the CSCLUG used when filing the paperwork was Zach Thomas - who is not even in the LUG.
3) I did mention the CSCLUG a few times in the interview. You should also keep in mind the story isn't about Blobber.
4) As the lead designer, creator, and developer I can say with certainty that the goal is to have a project that is cross platform. It isn't now, admittedly, but it will be.

I do want to say that I appreciate the contributions of the CSCLUG and that they are definitely worth a mention.

Posted by brian_muller on October 27, 2008 at 8:21 PM | Report this comment

Blobber, a project with many contributions from CSCLUG members, is shown in Marion Square:

http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A53618

The article's text needs a few corrections:
1. Graffiti Research Labs code L.A.S.E.R. Tag works on both Windows & Mac, and a CSCLUG member made a linux port. (TODO: place link to linux port)
2. The application to Piccolo Spoleto is underneath CSCLUG.
3. Failure to mention the other volunteers associated with writing blobber.
4. Blobber is not cross-platform

I'm making a similar post directly to the CCP comments section.

Check out www.csclug.org if you're interested in the technology side of things.

Posted by CovertCodeOp1 on October 24, 2008 at 4:40 PM | Report this comment

Flatbroke from the Spaced Invaders here. Gotta keep it brief and get back to work - thanks to the City Paper for providing a means for us to get in touch with Street Level and thanks to Street Level for doing what they do in art and technology. We look forward to working together.

As far as the for-profit accusations... we have invested a boatload of cash in our setup and a boatload of time in our work. Sometimes we get paid for what we do, sometimes we don't. We're not in it for the money, we're in it because we are huge geeks and love pushing the limits of this technology. I look forward to illustrating this point by working with brilliant folks at street level and the other like-minded organizations to produce some great work in the future.

Cheers

Posted by Flatbroke on October 23, 2008 at 12:01 PM | Report this comment

Sonar:

The upside to comment sections like this one is the range of points of view that can be seen. The downside is that people feel they can lob whatever accusations come to mind.

Bottomline: You don't need to defend yourself.

All you need to do is maintain high-minded principles, which, based on your comments, seem sound, constructive, and fair.

You want to collaborate. You want to innovate. You acknowledge your weaknesses. You have confidence in strengths. You'd like to grow. All of which is good.

Besides, your projects will speak for you in the long run. No need to spend your abundant energy explaining yourself.

You'd like others to be as open-minded as you are. But they are not. Sadly, that's the nature of these comment sections.

Don't worry to much about them. Again, let your projects speak for you. I look forward to seeing what Spaced Invaders and Street Level Lab come up with next. Keep in touch.

-John Stoehr

Posted by John Stoehr on October 23, 2008 at 10:32 AM | Report this comment

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