Originally published July 25 2005
Graffiti taking a technological turn in cities
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Internet users are familiar with hyperlinked text while surfing the web, but the Christian Science Monitor reports that the blue underlined emails and websites are appearing on city walls and streets as a new form of graffiti known as grafedia; a testament to the proliferation of internet technology.
What people see when they type in the address posted on the wall or sidewalk ranges from the artistic - haiku and photography - to the practical - travel recommendations and advertisements.
In some quarters, tagging is viewed as a form of expression in the hands of artists.
Grafedia - hyperlinked text on real surfaces - follows the same urban grass-roots traditions, though it may yet be co-opted by commercial interests as an advertising vehicle.
"With Grafedia, I saw that the Web was going away from people's laptops and computers and more toward being ubiquitous," says Grafedia founder John Geraci, a graduate student in interactive telecommunications at New York University.
"We need to embrace the idea of interweaving the physical world around us with the virtual world, not in a way that's virtual reality but in a way that's augmented reality."
Another company that facilitates high-tech graffiti is Yellow Arrow, which concerns itself with questions such as: When does an object become art?
By providing a name and address, anyone can register at yellowarrow.org and order arrow stickers through the mail.
As with Grafedia, people can stick the arrows anywhere (their front doors, their jackets, their bumpers) and upload a file to the website, which anyone can access via cellphone or the site.
A Toronto project called [murmur] - complete with brackets - uses the Grafedia and Yellow Arrow concept of tagging specific landmarks, but in this case storytellers record little pieces of history about various parts of the city that passersby can access by dialing the number at the tagged location.
If projects such as Grafedia generate mass appeal, advertisers may opt to hyperlink their billboards as well, says Eric Anderson, an expert on Web-based marketing for White Horse in Portland, Ore.
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