Graffiti Beyond Territories

Rethinking Space Materiality Through Digital and Graffiti

Abstract

From New York’s subway writers in the 1970s to today’s global street artists, graffiti has long functioned as a form of spatial hacking. Yet if digital technology is said to have transformed graffiti, what exactly has changed? Which new forms of territorial engagement and representation emerge when graffiti intersects with digital tools?

This paper examines evolving relationships between graffiti, territory, and digital media, focusing on how technologies such as drones and social media reshape access to space, visibility, and memory. What occurs when ephemeral, site-specific practices meet persistent, shareable, and searchable infrastructures? How does the logic of tagging adapt – or resist – to the demands of algorithmic visibility?

Through a selected corpus of works, this paper identifies two key shifts in territorial engagement in the digital age. First, access to inaccessible spaces: drone footage, video documentation, and online sharing allow visibility beyond physical reach, exemplified by high-risk actions of crews like 1UP in Athens and Naples. Second, access to multiple temporalities: digital tools preserve or reactivate erased works, as in Blu’s animated murals, Insa’s ‘GIF-iti,’ or social media archives.

This paper contributes to a broader reflection on how graffiti continues to negotiate – and redraw – the boundaries of territory in an increasingly hybrid, digitized urban environment.