Big Little ThingsTagging, Messages, and Messengers
We’ve been doing some research on graffiti, and we’ve found some interesting stuff about the origins of this mode of expression.
Turns out that the proliferation of tagging is widely attributed to Taki 183, a New York City tagger who became famous in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Taki was the nickname of a Greek-American foot messenger who lived on 183rd Street in Washington Heights. His job took him all over the city, and he wrote his nickname everywhere he went. Soon his tag was so pervasive that the New York Times was compelled to write an article about him. After that article was published, tagging became a widespread practice.
Tags, like names, carry little or no semantic meaning. They are not messages. But Taki the messenger did have a message for the city, whether he knew it or not. He showed New York that the city was a blank canvas, an empty page. The medium was his message.
February 5th, 2007 at 3:57 pm
I’m pretty sure that Taki 183 directly, or indirectly, inspired the movie Turk 182! (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090217/)
New York seems to get a lot of credit for birthing every graffiti movement you can think of (see: Style Wars). Are other cities pushing the envelope in others ways that are going unnoticed?