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Video GraffitiHodge and Kress do a revealing analysis of graffiti on a billboard that demonstrated the contradiction in an ideological complex (1988, p. 8-12). Video graffiti similarly alters the meaning of events and artifacts through the use of narration and in the use of camera techniques such as a zoom or rotation. These acts demonstrate the power of the camera to shape meaning by distorting what is embodied in an object, person, or event and, in so doing, reveal two sides of the ideological complex. These video clips demonstrate the uses of the material environment that are usually so difficult to document. Even more so than in the television show “Mystery Science Theater 2000,” in which characters joke about a movie as it plays, “consumers” have a chance to talk back when they hold a camera. Aspects of this form of graffiti appear in many projects, but only the focal project from Boarding High provided clear examples in this study. The clearest case of video graffiti is in a shot that consisted entirely of a “dialog” with items hung on a wall. One item shown is a poster that says, “Give yourself a chance to be great!” and has a cartoon of a polar bear and a penguin. See Illustration 13 for the images. Wicket reads the bubble above the bear, which says, “Who me?” He then turns to leave but changes his mind—an intention visible in the pan of the camera away and quick pan back to the poster. Instead of reading what the bubble above the penguin, which says, "Whose then?" Wicket gives it his own words, “And the penguin says, ‘Yes, you. Yes, you!’” emphasizing it with zooms in and out. He then laughs as he turns to see what Jerome has been trying to call his attention to. (A second bubble above the bear says, "Hey, it's not my responsibility!") The difficulty in analyzing this exchange, however, is that details about the poster are not known. Knowing who is trying to inspire students—both in terms of the organization which published the poster and the staff member who chose to display it—and toward what specific end—whether it be further education, military enlistment, or staying off drugs—would complete the picture of one side of the ideological complex. In a study that focuses in more detail on one school such background could be investigated, but under the current circumstances, there is only the video to provide information. And this also does not provide evidence as to whether Wicket was aware of the poster’s purpose. Wicket describes his own actions as “just kinda fooling with it.” Unlike the billboard with graffiti that Hodge and Kress analyzed, which was part of a campaign against tobacco, the students had no clear purpose in creating this transitory graffiti. Nevertheless, Wicket’s actions animated the poster for a short time and suggest an unwillingness to accept such motivational slogans uncritically. More importantly, it is a clear example of a type of video use to look for. Within Wicket and Jerome’s project, there are several examples of video graffiti, though the one described is viewed as the clearest. Another clip has similar properties and yields more information about the student-school relationship. In it, a student is shown hiding from the same security officers seen in another part of the video, and Wicket provides a commentary, but this will be discussed in the section that focuses specifically on Boarding High at the end of the chapter. One problem for the methodology, which must be addressed, is that few projects had such clear examples of video graffiti. Several projects at Boarding High contained at least one incident, but none of the projects from the other schools were observed to. The reason for this difference is clear: Only at Boarding High did the circumstances permit students to explore the school with the camera. It was most similar to the pilot data—which also included video graffiti—because most projects had sequences that are best described as exploration; they had no other aim than to see what there was to see in the school from the camera’s perspective. The questions that arise are whether assigning or at least permitting “exploration” would promote such video activity and whether or not the presence or substance of video graffiti is more revealing. The projects from Boarding High indicate that the presence of an authority figure—the college interns in the third course—reduces the amount of aimless video and video graffiti, in part because the unedited video is more serious. In most of the Boarding High projects, the clips that altered the meaning of objects, people, or events tended to be playful in nature, but “Perspectives,” a project from the third course (Project 16), had what could be considered “serious” cases of video graffiti (as well as recordings of actual graffiti). One clip used in the edited piece was of a patio roof, but it was in no way apparent what was being shown beyond thin boards and shadows. This is a special case of video graffiti because, instead of suggesting new meanings, the perspective removes the context and effectively reduces a purposeful object to an array of lines and shapes. (See Illustration 6, Still 2.) The third course had many examples of this type of activity. Clearly, the presence of a staff member reduces the amount of exploration undertaken and the playfulness, but it is not clear that the presence of video graffiti is affected. The distinction between playful and serious graffiti as well as that between applying new meanings versus removing the meaning asserted by the context offer a beginning to a deeper understanding. These can be supplemented by whether an act is directed toward an object, person, or event, but this is only a beginning. More important than the potential types, however, is the message inherent in these acts. As in other cases of graffiti, an alternative ideology is expressed in video graffiti that does not encompass all possible perspectives but adds to what is most obvious. Some of these will be meaningful in the attempt to define student-school relations, and some will not. Additional research is required to understand more about the nature of video graffiti and its potential. Another layer of analysis is necessary to fully explore the cases presented in these projects. |
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