Tuesday, Apr 14, 2009 at 16:34
Are they REALLY scum?
How can we tell that, from the info given in the article?
I hate media sensationist headlines without facts to back it up.
Don't get me wrong - I hate the scum kids in our neighbourhood who graffitti our front wall and gates onto the highway and who graffitti the business premises around here on a regular basis.
That said MANY / MOST of the early
explorers (including the first nations peoples of our land) were inspired at some point to leave behind their details for future generations.
So - with that background - how is yesterdays artist different from todays budding artist who wanted to record his / her passing a place for the edification of future vistors about past visistors?
At what point does one stop being a famous old explorer who carved his initials into a rock or blazed them into a tree - and then become a scum graffitti artist?
You know - a LOT of the aboriginal art paintings done on rocks with ochure - have been regularly "touched up / miantained / replaced" by later peoples of the same tribes, in more recent generations...its a tradition to keep the old art alive by re doing / re touching it from time to time.
How do we know - that "graffitti" depicted in the article - wasn't done by kids of the local tribe?
Just at what point exactly - does the artist/explorer become scum?
Was the govt surveyor on Depuch Island in 1907 just a graffitti scum?
Wickham and Stokes were graffitting scum?
Not according to the history books - should we re - write them?
What about the guy who carved this into the rocks - was he too just graffitti scum also?
I recall reading recently about a french prospector who claimed to have found the Telfer Gold
Mine loacation before it was pegged in about 1975 - he records carving his name into a rock at
Christmas Pool along with some of the early
explorers who had done the same almost 100 years before when exploring the rudall river area.
So he is scum as
well?
What about all the railway line huge horading signs alongside our large highways etc - just more scum advertisers?
It seems to me that a great many who travel to explore - go to see just such very efforts from long ago, as part of the attraction of the place nowdays - YET - they are somehow now "scum" if they do what everyone before them seems to have done!
So just what is the criteria for historic carvings / art etc and what exactly is "graffitti scum"?
Did the local Aboriginal artists of epuch island consider wickham and stokes "poor efforts" as graffitti scum" amongst their artworks?
Is it the age of the work that defines it as art / history - anything post 1975 is scum graffitti and anything before is historic exploration or first nations art works?
Is it the race of the perpetrator that makes it graffitti scum?
Some Lebanese kid in the neighbourhood protesting about the treatement of lebanese and palestinian people, with "artwork" on my front
gate & wall is a scum graffitti-ist, but a first nations kid who does the exact same thing is creating a work of art of the future?.
It's just seems to me that this whole graffitti thing isn't at all
well defined when it comes right down to it.
Some aboriginal / first nations kid somewhere in the
Kimberley gets a mouthfull of ochure and
water and sprays an outline of his hand under a overhanging
cliff near a
waterhole - should be tracked down & arrested and forced to do a few hundred ours community service as graffitti scum??
The Lebanese kid from the neighbourhood should be treated likewise?
Where exactly can one get all the "rules/laws" about who and what EXACTLY is "graffitti" and what is artwork, or is historically significant carvings etc etc
All seems VERY blurred to me.
One mans scum graffitti artist might be another mans michelangelo!
Arent we a funny lot when it all comes down to it with our constantly changing "politically correct"
views!
Cheers
AnswerID:
359523
Follow Up By: Axel [ the real one ] - Tuesday, Apr 14, 2009 at 18:31
Tuesday, Apr 14, 2009 at 18:31
Yep , recon you got it in one ,have seen an awful lot of EO stickers on landmarks as
well , just another form of graffiti ,, spray can / sticker / carving in a tree trunk ,, man's inane attempt to say "I was here" ,,,
FollowupID:
627492
Follow Up By: ob - Tuesday, Apr 14, 2009 at 18:40
Tuesday, Apr 14, 2009 at 18:40
Yeah, spot on Flywest, when does graffiti become historic artwork
Cheers ob
FollowupID:
627493
Follow Up By: get outmore - Tuesday, Apr 14, 2009 at 18:44
Tuesday, Apr 14, 2009 at 18:44
Some of the biggest amounts of rubish dumped out bush ive seen - people call woodcutters camps and put alot of effort in to see them
FollowupID:
627496
Follow Up By: GoneTroppo Member (FNQ) - Tuesday, Apr 14, 2009 at 18:59
Tuesday, Apr 14, 2009 at 18:59
Noble thoughts indeed the way I read this is that you condone all daubings by all for any reason. Or maybe I didn't read it right.
If a drugged out of his mind moron gets into the Natinal Gallery with his spraycan and defaces a couple of dozen artworks is he or she is to be applauded for expressing themselves?
Society decides what is acceptable, in 21st century Australian society graffiti scum are just that, scum, no matter what colour, religion or culture.
Without the concept of "acceptable behaviour", anarchy reigns.
FollowupID:
627501
Follow Up By: On Patrol & TONI - Tuesday, Apr 14, 2009 at 19:51
Tuesday, Apr 14, 2009 at 19:51
GoneTroppo (said)
"Noble thoughts indeed the way I read this is that you condone all daubings by all for any reason. Or maybe I didn't read it right".
GoneTroppo
I think you did not read it right!!
Flywest posed the question, where is the line between Graffiti & historical evidence?
I have often asked myself that same question.
Cool down a little and look at the post in a logical light, it posses some good fuel for intelligent, reasonable and clam debate.
Cheers Colin.
FollowupID:
627508
Follow Up By: GoneTroppo Member (FNQ) - Tuesday, Apr 14, 2009 at 20:13
Tuesday, Apr 14, 2009 at 20:13
You're right I've always enjoyed a good clam debate :-)
FollowupID:
627520
Follow Up By: Top End Explorer Tours - Tuesday, Apr 14, 2009 at 23:45
Tuesday, Apr 14, 2009 at 23:45
Flywest your statement below is not entirely correct.
You know - a LOT of the aboriginal art paintings done on rocks with ochre - have been regularly "touched up / maintained / replaced" by later peoples of the same tribes, in more recent generations...its a tradition to keep the old art alive by re doing / re touching it from time to time.
Aboriginal art is NEVER touched up , this is fact, the art work may be maintained to preserve, but not touched up, if a painting is replicated it is because it's significant, this painting may be replicated some hundreds or perhaps, thousands of years later,the same story will be told but a new painting will be done ,in some cases a painting may have served it's purpose, and done it's job, this painting will be left to the test of time.
Aboriginal art is a language, plaques, carvings, left behind by
explorers are part of history, these are not to be confused with mindless graffiti, lets get that straight.
What happened at Ubirr disturbs my wife and I deeply, we know the people of the area closely, I knew Big Bill (
Kakadu Man) from when I was a Kid, Bill allowed Anja and I to get married on top of Ubirr next to Ceremony Rock, this was a privilege that will never be given to a white person again at Ubirr.
Trust me this is nothing but A disgrace, Old man would turn in his grave knowing someone did this, the article talks of art work there of 3000 years, try over 20000, the main gallery is the oldest continuously lived in shelter known to man, once more a fact.
Many people on this site whinge, bitch, moan, complain about needing a permit to enter Aboriginal land, perhaps you can now understand why.
Cheers Steve.
FollowupID:
627581
Follow Up By: Flywest - Wednesday, Apr 15, 2009 at 19:31
Wednesday, Apr 15, 2009 at 19:31
[quote]If a drugged out of his mind moron gets into the Natinal Gallery with his spraycan and defaces a couple of dozen artworks is he or she is to be applauded for expressing themselves? [/quote]
Apparently so!
I believe the guy received over a million $ of taxpayers money for it as
well, go figure - from memory - it was called "blue poles"?
Top Ender,
Our experiences vary - back in the Murchison - a first nations (aboriginal elder) took me to some aboriginal art work (ochur hands) as a kid - and WE participated in renewing some of the older fading works. He wanted me coz presumably my hands were small enough to do the small kids ones that were there.
His explanation to me was, that "hand reliefs" maked the position of his tribal elders burial
places.
The
cliff overhang was (still is?) located on the Jones families Boogardie Station, west of Mt Magnet - probably still there.
The elder "Dan" was part of a two man open cut gold mining operation on the station back in about 1971, who showed us all their mining operation and old Dan showed us some of the very old
abandoned mine shafts around the place as
well as the
cliff overhang art.
Some 7 years later (1978) I spent time in
Halls Creek with the kids there (My sis was a school teacher there) and saw similar artworks out of
Halls Creek on the old Buchanan Hwy? toward Reg Underwoods "Inverway" station in the Territory.
I assume they do the same pretty much all over the country - your mileage however may vary.
Lastly - (as I already asked) how do we know who exactly made the graffitti in question - i.e. hw do we know it wasn't the old since deceased elders very own grandkids or friends who perpetrated the graffitti, and IF it were them, then would it NOT be classified as aboriginal artwork rather than grafitti?.
My question was - as to exactly where we draw the distinction?
Wickham and Stokes work (depicted above) of 1840.... where does it stand in thegrand scheme of things?
Similarly that of he Govt Surveyor of 1907?
Should they be expunged at govt cost as early "graffitti" of some of the first white garffitti scum?
If not, is that because of it's antiquity (Historical significance) or is it's aboriginality / "non aboriginality"?
If we keep it due to its antiquity - what year exactly was "historical significance" surpassed and graffitti status granted?
It the criteria is aboriginality, then what - how pure blood does one have to be to be granted artwork status versus graffotti status.
I ned to know legal answers for this - for the comming day when I catch the local kids painting "Freedom Revolution 08" etc on my gates to promote their protests about treatement of Lebanese relatives back in their homeland.
I'd hate to be charged wrongly by the police for what I fully intend to do to these kids is all.
Where they rank in thewhole scheme of things is kinda important in my self defence at court! ;o)
Cheers
FollowupID:
627698
Follow Up By: GoneTroppo Member (FNQ) - Thursday, Apr 16, 2009 at 08:09
Thursday, Apr 16, 2009 at 08:09
Flywest I think you may be trying to defend the indefensible.
For 99% of people there is no argument about what this is.
Graffiti scum!
FollowupID:
627750
Follow Up By: get outmore - Thursday, Apr 16, 2009 at 10:53
Thursday, Apr 16, 2009 at 10:53
Just on artwork My mate visited
kakadu and as is what happens a guided tour went through with the guide giving a 15 min speil on what the story was behind the painting.
i had to laugh becasue after seeing the art there could be some truth behind it
but he reckoned it was no more than a "brag board" where the
young bucks proved there ability to provide by drawing around a
big barra they just caught then subsequent
young bucks tried to beat it - probabally taking a few libarties when drawing around the fish
- maybe not much changes?
FollowupID:
627759