It remains to be one of my favorite books, Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. When you’re an art and architecture student it’s a must-read. Or at least it was in my time. Some of the books you read during your life seem to have settled down in a cosy corner of your brain and stir every time something passes that reminds them of themselves. I have no control over this; I am just a happy carrier of facts and stories…
Now that I am researching for my articles, again, I am looking differently at my city and its people. Why do we have a tendency to create images everywhere around us? Even on the surface of our body. And then why can’t we accept the fact that some also like doing that on city walls, spans and bridges? Now that I have been studying throw-ups and tags and interviewing graffiti writers I see a whole new city in front of me. And not only that; I see how everything is logically connected.
What does this say about us as a collective? It seems far more complex then the cave paintings made by homo sapiens, although some people tell me that graffiti writers are nothing less then cavemen. When I look around these days these drawings and writings speak to me; about the city, about us humans, about the scars on the surface that tell us something about the the gut of things. I try to imagine what it looks like to new-comers coming from the middle east or African countries. If it helps them read us. Or what it would look like to someone who arrived here just after we all left earth… what does it all say about us?
