IN-PERSON Barcelona. Section B

Abstract

London’s walls are changing. Over the past ten years, one industry has started to boom: hand-painted advertising. No longer is advertising just billboards and electronic displays, but a matter of paint, generating palimpsest archives of commerce and culture. But these images are not all they seem – they are mostly viewed online, where photographs are circulated, shared, and consumed. Competing with a rich heritage of street art and graffiti, the growth of hand-painted advertising thus begs the question: what is the significance of materiality when the distinction between digital and painted images is blurred? This paper will explore the shifting meaning of materiality when street art culture competes with the advertising industry in London – where walls were once sites of contestation, ephemerality and continually evolving heritage, now they are reduced to a binary state of either vast commercial mural, or completely whitewashed. How can we make sense of this change in the material culture of urban surfaces? Given that these images now widely circulate online, too—such is the success of the form—how can we make sense of the role of digital technologies in mediating the contours of our urban surfaces? Paradoxically, hand-painted advertising relies upon the materiality of the city, but only temporarily, for its success is predicated upon the sharing of its immaterial simulations. Understanding the impacts of this rapidly growing industry on urban heritage and street art culture requires being attentive to the dynamic nature of the materiality of the urban form.