William Gibson’s famous adage from Neuromancer, “The street finds its own uses for things,” catalyzed a deep realization within my skull. That the street is not only an exciting, alluring, dangerously deterritorialized zone of possibilities, it is actually alive. A god, even—one that as I walk within, I am (a very, very small) part. From this assertion expounds many resonant theories, but for now I speak of its skin: street art as an organic form of ritual dialogue; communion, if you will, as the writing on the wall.

It’s not exactly communion in the Christian sense, because of the transpersonal dynamics involved, yet it is still consuming a body within a body. In this case the street absorbs me, and I become part of it. Street art blossoms organically, like flowers, yet it is, quite concretely, the writing on the wall; the unspoken yet plainly obvious truths of our culture. Obviously advertising occupies a great portion of this territory, but the voices that tinker and play at the edges of colonization are often a celebration of possibilities outside the agendas of advertising.

Sony’s new graffiti ad campaign has thus caused quite a stir within the Elfen annals of street art culture. The themes are not necessarily new: co-option of a subculture by big business, the relationship between art and money and culture, the tension between selling out and paying the rent. But the discourse is real, articulate, and gut-honest. And the reactionary art is ill.

Here’s beginning of the dialog on the Sony campaign at the Wooster Collective: here & here & here & here. And it continues into today: here & here. There’s a lot more too, with some excellent photographs.

Flickr on PSP & the streetART pool.

Image credit: Secondary Screening.

“The street giveth, and the street taketh away.”