Bayyinah C. Pierre

Prof. Sacha Frey

Intro Lit/Crit Arch I

October 13^th 2012.

Hey, I bomb it.

 The film, Style Wars by Tony Silver and Henry Chalfant illuminates the impact of writing on trains on youth in the 1970’s. Back then, Graffiti was a never ending play. It was the symbol of possession, recognition, and ultimately, youth. It all started with the name “Taki,” Taki started writing his name on walls in around public transportations in all 5 boroughs in the 1970’s. His name was everywhere, and once people realized it was a boy’s name; wherever they would go, they would write their name. They wrote everywhere there was space on a surface, on windows, seats, walls, trains, anywhere... It eventually took a deeper meaning. It was no longer about identities, but personal style. Taki started a movement without even knowing that people who signed their names just like him would later be called writers. The trains transport writers’ names from one city to the next.

            “It’s a matter of bombing, knowing that I could do it. Every time I get in a train, I see my name, I say, yeah… you know, I was there, I bomb it.” says one of the writers to his mom. I was there, seems to be a common phrase in the film. Human beings have an immense desire to be famous, to be recognized for something. In a sense, “bombing”, beating the system, is the writer’ way of saying: “I’ve done something, I've been somewhere.” Putting their names on the train cars make the cities the cars travel in, theirs. The space has transformed itself into a place, and is no longer strange.     

Most of the writers in the film lived in projects, not much belongs to them. Little to none of the writers has established something for themselves other than graffiti. Without it they would not have a name attached to their cities, they would be ordinary which they fear.

In the projects, everything looks the same. The brick style architecture with barbed wires and fences hasn’t changed. The stories portrayed behind the walls are identical, a single mother raising her kids with insufficient funds. With the pressure of everyday life, writers look for attention elsewhere. Writing on the trains changes their daily life, their statistics, it argues with the image people have set for them, the image that they are not going to achieve something in their life.

The satisfaction of knowing you have accomplished something so controversial is the drive that handed down graffiti from generation to generation. The determination to accomplish something underground, a frightful place, quickly enough that you do not get caught kept the movement from dying. Also, writers know tomorrow morning, someone is going to see it. For the next few weeks, their traveling art is going to be seen in all the five boroughs. To be seen is the intent.  “Yeah I vandalism alright, but still in general I know what I'm doin'. I did somethin' to make yo eyes open up. Right? So why is you talking ‘bout it for?” says another writer from the film. I did something to make your eyes open up is ultimately them saying I did something that you cannot; I made you see something that you couldn’t see. Writers are making people in the projects realize that they are something. They can do anything even if their daily life does not allow it, even if it means to put your freedom on the line. They can create art even if the boundaries of their pockets do not allow them to go to art school.

“Bombing,” the act of carrying your name from one city to another is embedded into youth’s DNA. Writers are rocking the cities with their given name and personal style. The name is given for recognition, wherever you’re asked what your name is, people instantly recognize it, they've seen it somewhere, and it’s familiar. “The arrow... everybody's got their own arrow, I like that though. Various arrows, some guys had add on letter arrow that was like connection. Some people had different arrows just going right through their pieces.”  Writers go to the extreme to grab attention, to be remembered by someone with their pieces.

 Everyone tries to be different, and even though two arrows might look similar, they aren't  they’re completely different because it wasn't done by the same writer.  The writer’s name comes from personal style and character. When the name is given, it is the writer’s responsibility to make it into something, to do something with it. “Hey, how big can you get this name up? How high?” explains a writer to a woman who wants to understand the birth place of the written names.

            Graffiti creates an alternative map of the city, it allows you to recognize a place, to situate yourself, or give directions. It permits the writers to recognize the city they live in, they can call it theirs. The alternative map erases the old one, the one that comes with the image people have set for them, that map that indicates that in the future they will be in prison for drugs. The alternative map beats the system; it steps away from the homogeneous gridded environment. The writers want all boroughs to become their place. “A place is thus an instantaneous configuration of positions. It implies an indication of stability” writes de Certeaux in his essay, “Spatial Stories”.

            The death of Graffiti on train cars came along with the inability of youth to gather underground and share their passion. The disappearance of graffiti on trains embodies the disappearance of the alternative map. Without the alternative map, youth has no future.  We, as people, no longer set foundations, we are no longer unified, we no longer gather. We don’t see the world around us; we only see the one in front of us, ours.  The new versus the old is incomparable. Nowadays, graffiti has become a mode of destruction, what it was said to be before. It is no longer art. The movement ended when writers decided to make money off of their pieces and stopped or stopped trying to beat the system.  They gave up on bombing, they gave up on themselves. The gap between the old and the new has set us back in so many ways, I would have loved to ride a colorful train, but I wasn't given the chance. I would love to seen a blank silver train transformed into something meaningful. “That's some never forgive action!” says a writer.