Abstract
The utilization of the street as an alternative and independent medium for transmission of radical political ideas is a form of civil disobedience manifested thus to a certain extent in a work of propaganda and is an example of creative idealism. In this case graffiti can be regarded as a non-violent protest that was theoretically described by Henry David Thoreau in the treatise on “The Duty of Civil disobedience”, a work that has become an essential part of anthologies of political and social philosophy. To a certain degree, in its visual format, graffiti is a continuation of the “samizdat” tradition dating back to the Soviet era, both in the sense of a socially critical message and in the use of an alternative medium. Proposing a new, tactical usage of technology critically directed against technocracy of contemporary society youth of the city is trying to occupy it’s public space by specific type of aesthetization and, in the same time, is delivering clear message. The goal of this paper is the reading and interpretation of messages of the images and texts in stencil – graffiti in Riga in the context of interplay between counter cultures, different minor social groups and their ideologies. The method used is social semiotic analysis. The results show that the criticism of technocratic capitalism, consumerism and the oppression of life and the nature are most important issues taken up by the authors of stencils.
Highlights
According to Theodor Roszak’s classic definition, youth counterculture is “opposition to a technocratic society”, i.e. the critique of an overwhelming technocracy
This is maybe most immediate and most open platform for forming and expression of the grass-root ideas as well as for testing of new sign systems and alternative media. This is not always noticed because neither researchers, nor traditional media, nor media audience that inhabit the public space – no one seriously sees in the rebellious, countercultural ideology based messages sense full criticism on the existing status quo in the contemporary society
The visual and material signs of the countercultural semiosis cycle are tamed in the process of cooptation, and lose their critical sense, respectively, in the sense of semiotics, the social critical element of the signified is changed to aesthetic signified, i.e. decorative, income bringing
Summary
According to Theodor Roszak’s classic definition, youth counterculture is “opposition to a technocratic society”, i.e. the critique of an overwhelming technocracy. Another important theoretician of counterculture Timothy Leary, in speaking about the “symbol of the electric guitar” of the youthful opposition, points on its ambivalent attitude towards technological innovation. In the case of the subculture of graffiti, a battle is taking place for the aestheticization of the public space This is the answer provided by the rebellious sons to the “fathers of the city” who possess money and power with which to design urban public space using architectural means. The generation of sons, who are excluded from this real estate discourse due to a lack of means, put into play the only thing they own, i.e. their body, which they subject to the danger of imprisonment, because graffiti is an illegal activity, which in legal terms is interpreted as vandalism, a view that prevails within the mass media
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