GRAFFITI | ON TRANSGRESSION IN THE PUBLIC SPACE. Towards Spaces of Uncertainty

Abstract

Through an analysis of the public space in late modernity, this dissertation proposes to think of graffiti as a possible rescue of the place, in the context of a growing homogeneous mass of non places, as argued by Augé. In doing so, other ways of producing the city are suggested, both in effective and meaningful terms, to the extent that the experience of graffiti is proposed as an act of resistance to spatial orthodoxy and exclusion. Since the recognition of this practice should never be regarded in terms of legality — thus running the risk of losing the subversive quality of the phenomenon and of incorporating it into gentrification policies —, tools are given for the un- derstanding of graffiti both within and outside the concepts and methodologies of traditional Art History and Art Criticism, drawing also on the street axioms themselves for a well demarcated distinction between moral (and legal) and aesthetic judgment.

Key-words: Spaces of Uncertainty, Participatory Urbanism, Graffiti, Urbotone