Digital Graffiti: Helping You Get Up Without Getting Taken Down

By Blair "Bliz" Milbourne

When the Animated GIF starts getting called art, you know the times are…changing. Hell, even graffiti has gotten a makeover by tech geeks and encoding pioneers.

Digital graf first appeared on the international stage through the efforts of the rebel art and technology collective known as the GRL (Graffiti Research Lab). Organized in 2006 and helmed by Evan Roth (a graduate of and now teacher for Parsons) and James Powderly (a self-proclaimed "graf engineer" who clocked hours for NASA), their collective, F.A.T Lab (Free Art and Technology), developed ways to project tags onto buildings. There are also some new digi graff apps on the marketplace, and the one by KATSU allows you to “project” your tag onto digital photos. Click on to check out a few of these digital graffiti technologies, and get your e-vandal on.

Paint the Town LED


Graf artists aren't well liked for "defacing" public property, but those who throw pieces via laser projection tools can get up in a way that lets them paint the town without being fined. The Digital Graf Festival at Alys Beach provides a setting for illustrators, taggers, filmmakers, and digital designers to create on the town's architecture and potentially take home some gwap in the process.

TEMPT’s Eyewriter Glasses


In mid-2009 the GRL/F.A.T. Lab team were commissioned by production company The Ebeling Group/Not Impossible Foundation to create an open source hardware/software system that would give L.A.-based graf writer, TEMPT the ability to tag using his eyesight. TEMPT was stricken with ALS ("Lou Gherig's Disease") in 2003, rendering him immobile and only able to use his eyes. Through F.A.T. Lab’s Eyewriter program, TEMPT has been able to get up digitally in places like Norway and Japan. The program was pegged by TIME Magazine as one of the 50 best inventions of 2010.

DIY Bomb-y Digital


A member of the GRL's Utah chapter went ahead and broke down the starter kit to building your own digital graph machine on his One L.A.S.E.R Tag Per Child site. It’s not perfect, but if you use this as an outline, you can get started on wreaking a lil' digi nighttime havoc on your neighbors from across the way.