_
| \
| \
| | \
__ | |\ \ __
_____________ _/_/ | | \ \ _/_/ _____________
| ___________ _/_/ | | \ \ _/_/ ___________ |
| | _/_/_____ | | > > _/_/_____ | |
| | /________/ | | / / /________/ | |
| | | | / / | |
| | | |/ / | |
| | | | / | |
| | | / | |
| | |_/ | |
| | | |
| | c o m m u n i c a t i o n s | |
| |________________________________________________________________| |
|____________________________________________________________________|
...presents... Streetart Ninjutsu
by elliot.pank
__//////\ -cDc- CULT OF THE DEAD COW -cDc- /\\\\\\__
__ Grand Imperial Dynasty __
Est. 1984 \\\\\\/ cDc paramedia: texXxt 402-01/07/2006 \////// Est. 1984
___ _ _ ___ _ _ ___ _ _ ___ _ _ __
|___heal_the_sick___raise_the_dead___cleanse_the_lepers___cast_out_demons__|
______/==========//- BACKGROUND INFORMATION -\\===========\______
\==========\\- start at the beginning -//===========/
"You call that art? That's just ugly and stupid. Don't be proud of
yourself for that rubbish."
Those were roughly the words my father used when he saw my first
decorations with a self-made marker. As a fifteen year old graffiti kid full
of adrenaline, I had tagged the door of a power station near our house. I
liked the tag; plain bold red letters. Not really art, but it was a nice mark
on my small town. Things then got a bit out of control.
I had an assignment at my school to paint a long wall with some
friends. We had a sponsor, he bought us approximately $200 in spray paint.
We used a third of them and took the rest home. My Mum began to worry when
she saw the 30 cans of spray paint I had stacked in the basement. One week
later, I made a great deal with a spray paint company and they sent me some
laboratory cans (cans with slightly wrong colour tones) for a very good
price. Have you ever seen a box with 70 spray paint cans? *That* makes
parents worry.
I had to do something about it. So I became a legal graffiti artist.
I painted canvases for everybody: my parents, other family members, friends,
and every stupid person who wanted to pay for it. That stopped them from
worrying -- for a while.
But painting canvases during daylight in the garden with some funky
tunes on the mp3 player cannot make up for the feeling of doing a fast bombing
in the middle of the night. Running through the dark with your gear. The
fear and the adrenaline. If criminal activities were not such a great drug,
no one would do them...
During the first summer of the U.S. occupation in Iraq, I got into a
new form of streetart. My friends and I took part in the protests against
the war and, before going out, we always took some postal labels and painted
them with anti-war messages. I remember entering a house and sticking some
big messages onto the outside of the third floor's balcony during a labor
union rally. The cops took a photo of me and one of them approached me when
we came down again. He thought that I had painted something, but as I
explained that these were "only stickers" he let me go.
This form of defacement of public property suited me. I enjoyed
creating a piece of art at home and putting it up during the day, directly
under the eyes of law enforcement personnel. I took the idea of my stickers
further. I moved away from political messages and developed some stencils to
print more complex designs on the postal stickers.
This form of post-graffiti is not new. The scene is impressive and its
documentation is very professional; authors like Tristan Manco and Christian
Hundertmark are doing a great job with their books on streetart. For
neophytes in the field, I recommend the stickernation.net gallery. It is
organized chronologically, but you can get random selections out of the 32235
pictures in database: http://stickernation.net/seenrandom.asp
I assume you have already noticed the vast amount of streetart in your
city. I further assume that you have been eager to try street art for
yourself and the only thing you need now is...
______/==========//- THE NSF DIY GUIDE TO STREETART -\\===========\______
\==========\\- this ain't your dad's graffiti -//===========/
NOTE: This file does not tell you what sorts of messages to convey.
Use your creativity and find something you want to tell the world. If that
is too much for you, please proceed to point 4 and produce a cDc stencil and
put it up everywhere.
-/- table of contents -\-
1. STICKERS
2. POSTERS
3. DEBRIS
4. STENCILS
-\---------------------/-
1. Do not paint postal stickers. Sorry, this is over and you missed
out. Only do this if you have absolutely no budget. That is the
only advantage of postal stickers: they are free at your PO and
they stick like hell. But if you have no budget, you would still
need some markers to paint...
Let's assume you really want to do stickers and you are willing to
spend a small amount of money. Get some white sticker labels at
any store (e.g. office supply stores, Kinko's, etc.) and produce
your design at the copy shop, or with your home laser printer or
with some markers. Do not use alcohol-based markers; they will
wash out in the rain. I recommend using a nice computer-generated
design and getting 1,000 stickers printed at some web-based sticker
print shop. The prices are not that high.
Sticker production is no big deal, but here are some good tips for
actually sticking them up. It is good to have the stickers
already stuck to the inside of your jacket, if the jacket has a
smooth polyester surface. Then, you can just reach inside your
jacket and you will not have to peel the sticker off of its
transfer medium before sticking it.
Another idea is to buy a sticker album (come on, you know you had
one when you were a kid -- you probably still do) and keep the
stickers in it. Do not waste time separating the sticker from its
backing; you have to be fast.
Remember what I said about how little the cops show interest in
people putting up stickers? Well, that was several years ago. By
now, shop owners and cops will be on the lookout for people
putting up stickers. This does not mean that you should stick at
night; daylight action is far more inconspicuous.
2. Posters are a far more interesting medium. They are cheap and you
can really go big. My favorite copy shop has a plotter and I can
copy my stuff up to a 2 meter size. With posters, you need glue
or paste. You can find good wheatpaste recipes on the web or buy
some good wallpaper paste.
I recommend weather-resistant TERROR PASTE.
***** OFFICIAL cDc/NSF TERROR PASTE *****
You will need:
* powder of pounded glass
* wood glue
* wallpaper paste
Mix the wallpaper paste according to
the package's instructions, but use
double the amount of powder. Let it
set for half an hour. Mix a small
amount of wood glue into the paste and
add the pounded glass. (It has to be
really fine pounded glass, no shards.)
Use the paste immediately, this stuff
gets ugly in storage.
***** ----- ***** --+-- ***** ----- *****
Tips for postering: get some supermarket bags and put your stuff
into them. First, prepare the surface and the poster with your
TERROR PASTE. After you have applied the poster to the wall, put
more TERROR PASTE over it. This will help with weather resistance.
3. "Debris" is a form of street art where you take what you can find
and form sculptures from it.
Tip: use polyurethane foam (fitting foam glue), that is funny
stuff.
4. Stencils are a great medium for mass reproduction of one image.
The process is easy, you create a black and white image, put it on
an acetate sheet and cut out the black areas. Then, put it on a
surface and paint it with a spray can. Ta-da, perfect graffito.
Some basic and advanced tips should be observed:
-< Basic >-
The resulting image should not contain "islands," areas of white
that are not connected. Use a sharp knife (an art design scalpel
It is necessary to cut the stencil out of acetate, as paper will
form waves when it dries. It is good to stick chicken wire to the
inside of a folder to transport the stencil, so it will not stick
to itself. Others have proposed transporting stencils in pizza
boxes as camouflage; this could work as well.
-< Advanced >-
Use spray glue to attach the stencil to the surface before
printing. This will give you sharper lines. Attach a border of
paper to the sides of your stencil to avoid overspray.
______/==========//- WORDS OF WARNING FROM ME TO YOU -\\===========\______
\==========\\- a nickel's worth of free advice -//===========/
It is illegal in most countries to paint on property that you do not
own. Sticking paper to other people's property is a crime in some countries,
as well, though it is legal in some locales.
Please be discreet and cautious. And have fun. Do not get caught;
if you do, you are on your own.
___________ BLATTA---NON EST---VACCA ___________
\ / \ \_ _/ / \ /
|A G L A| \ \ / / |A G L A|
||\/X\/|| \ EST_ _EST / ||\/X\/||
|| \./ || \ \ / / || \./ ||
|\ ||_3 4_|| /|NON cDc NON|\ ||_3 4_|| /|
| -------._((___))_.------- |EST | EST| -------._((___))_.------- |
|\/)(\/\ [ x x ] /\/)(\/| \ | / |\/)(\/\ [ x x ] /\/)(\/|
|(YHVH) >A \ / O< (AHIH)| \ EST / |(YHVH) >A \ / O< (AHIH)|
|/\)(/\/ _ (' ') _ \/\)(/\| \ | / |/\)(/\/ _ (' ') _ \/\)(/\|
| -------' ) (U) ( '------- | \ | / | -------' ) (U) ( '------- |
|/ || . || \| DAEMONSEMEN |/ || . || \|
|| / \ || ELIGERE || / \ ||
||/\X/\|| ||/\X/\||
|A D N I| the original e-zine |A D N I|
/_________\ - today, tomorrow - /_________\
xXx DYNASTY xXx FOREVER xXx DYNASTY xXx
_
Oooo xXx / RULE BOVINIA \ xXx / ) __
/)(\ ( . \ / ( / \
\__/ ) / Copyright (c) 2006 cDc communications and the author. \ . ) \)(/
(_/ CULT OF THE DEAD COW is a registered trademark of oooO
cDc communications, 1369 Madison Ave. #423, NY, NY 10128, USA _
oooO All rights left. Edited by Myles Long. __ ( \
/ . ) /)(\ / \ ) \
\ ( \__/ Save yourself! Go outside! Do something! \)(/ ( . /
\_) xXx BOW to the COW xXx Oooo
.ooM