Changes in metropolitan aesthetics caused by the phenomenon of street and graffiti arts - the varie- ties, history and the negative and positive impact on the 21st century’s society Table of contents: 1. Abstract. 2. The expansion of visual arts into the city’s structures through street-art and graffiti arts. -Urbanisation and the expansion of street-art and graffiti. -Different approach on the legality of these arts. 3. The multiplicity of types of street-art and graffiti. -The difference between these two forms of modern visual arts. -Methodology of their types. 4. The origins of different street-art and graffiti forms. -Etymology -Street art’s connection to wall paintings in the prehistoric and historic eras. -Typographical influence as the main root of graffiti art. -The extraction of street-art and graffiti from other art forms in the 20th century. 5. Optical and perceptional changes of the metropolitan aesthetics due to the phenomenon. -The influence of colours in human perception caused by the phenomenon of visual arts on the streets. -Metropolitan architecture’s perception and the negative and positive affection of the mentioned above art’s forms. -Political and ideological messages involved into the state of these arts. -Synthesis of street-art and graffiti with modern culture, digital forms of art, and they affect on the society. 6. Ending statement - the ambiguity of the phenomenon and the overall impact on the metropolitan environment. -Authors comment. 7. Bibliography and sources of images. "1 1.Abstract As a humans living in the 21st century we are all exposed to the environ- ment which surrounds us, which in fact is a highly complex synthesis of the natu- ral and human creation that seems to be existing in some form of balance between them. The demography of our planet seems to be tending towards the concentra- tion of human masses due to the urbanisation and globalisation phenomenas that occur in the present. According to the „2014 revision of the World Urbanisation Prospects” by The Department of Economic and Social Affairs of United Nations the urbanisation process is rapidly growing in the 21st century, with mega-cities (more than 10 million occupants) increasing in numbers all over the globe, small cities growing rapidly and rural populations being expected to decrease in num- bers. 1 All those metropolises are places where a lot of human activities are hap- pening and the pace of life is much faster as the perception is exposed to so many more incentives. The biggest part of perception, for the inhabitants of metropolis is the architecture and design surrounding them also internal as external. The complexity of these architectural designs that big cities consist of is very wide and includes all forms of human creation with different purposes (usable, com- mercial, decorative) . All that creation as a part of the overall urban environment has a heavy impact on the society occupying the city. On what this article will focus is the phenomenon of visual arts appearing in the public spaces of metropolises, commonly called street-art or graffiti, and their influence on the aesthetics, society, as well as their positive and negative si- des and their historical background. It is an objectively new occurrence in the hi- story of art and humanity, being one of the most modern art forms as well as the most public one. Street-art and graffiti arts due to their conflict with law, freedom of expression and maximalist approach have become very popular in modern me- tropolitan societies and their impact on the aesthetics is easily noticed. The artic- le intends to help the reader to understand these phenomenas as well as categori- 1 http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/publications/2014-revision-world-urbanization-prospects.html "2 se and describe them. It also aims to clarify the origins and influence of these mo- dern-day forms of art as well as to point out their negative and positive impact on the society. 2. The expansion of visual arts into the city’s structures through street and graffiti arts. As mentioned before it is not possible to not notice the occurrence of street- art and graffiti in the metropolitan space as it’s forms permeated over a large va- riety of architectural and mechanical structures. The most commonly painted surfaces are city’s walls which are probably the only spaces able to host paintings of such enormous sizes, but it also reaches other kinds of surfaces such as public transportation means (trains, subway, buses), all of the city’s infrastructure parts , monuments, billboards, road signs as well as private property such as trucks, fences or elevations. Basically we could say that these two forms of art try to paint and write over everything that’s surrounding us. That proves of the expansional character of those activities but also it shows a synthetic approach of the artists trying to fill some kind of gaps in the architectural design in which they exist and express themselves that way. So what can we say about the scale of the that occurrence ? „As graffiti hit the 21st century the scene seemed to explo- de, particularly with urban and street artists that had begun their graffiti journey back in the 1990’s.” 2Says Steve Gray in an article written for the Widewalls ma- gazine, and it is true, surely we can notice the growth in numbers of street-art and graffiti paintings over the last few years practically everywhere in the world, and considering the prognoses of the urbanisation process it seems to extend it- self even more creating a new aesthetics of the metropolises. 2 https://www.widewalls.ch/gra#ti-hits-the-21st-century/ "3 A great example of such street-art expansion process is the history of Phi- ladelphia’s Mural Art Program starting in 1984 by artist Jane Golden3 turning Philadelphia into one of the most decently painted cities with thousands of colour- ful murals. The outcomes of this project lead the society to a better balance of the life in the city and it’s suburbs, rise the employment rate, tourism and have pro- ven financially beneficial. The story of this project is a great example on how the expressive, artistic human energies under the correct program can turn out good for the society. On the other hand extremely big amounts of money are being spent on the graffiti removal. „In 2005, the cost of criminal damage Australia wide, which included but was not limited to graffiti vandalism, was estimated to be $1.58 billion annually” .4 The legality of these phenomenas was always their biggest problem, as it was always up to the artist’s intention, especially when he wanted to reach a large group of recipients for his message or just to become more famous as many graffi- ti artists do by writing their nicknames in enormous size on public walls. In diffe- rent countries there are different penalties for graffiti offences, but the main idea is that if someone does it without permission it is illegal. Every cause is of diffe- rent weight according to the scale of damage. That’s by law, but theoretically if an object is just painted but still can fulfil it’s functions it is not destroyed so even be- ing illegal it mostly doesn’t really do something that bad from an ethical point of view. Taking a closer look we can notice thats it is all about the flow of the socie- ty’s expressionistic energy through the artistic medium of painting. Basically the bigger the society is the bigger scale these phenomenas have and the bigger the impact they create back on the society. 3. The multiplicity of forms of street-art and graffiti. 3 Jane Golden, Robin Rice, Natalie Pompilio: More Philadelphia Murals and the Stories They Tell". Temple University. Retrieved November 14, 2006. 4 3. Rollings K 2008. Counting the costs of crime in Australia: a 2005 update. Research and public policy series no. 91. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. "4 At first we need to point out that graffiti and street-art is not the same, the- se two terms refer to different forms of art. Graffiti is more letter-based, typogra- phical form concentrated on the use of spray paint and rollers, also much more criminally related, having it’s own non-written rules, while Street-Art is more to- lerant, illustrative, less conflictual and refers more to traditional ways of painting (like fresco5) and mixed media as an artistic expression. Both of these forms take place in the public spaces but their aesthetic effects are quite different as a result of other tools and materials used in the creation process. Graffiti artists basically use spray cans, markers, squeezers6 and more writing-based tools while street artists prefer to use facade paints, stencils, wheat paste posters, brushes and rol- lers but also spray paints. Graffiti artists commonly form so called crews while street-artists tend to be more individual but also creating collaborative artistic collectives for productions of bigger scale. Street art is more focused on the idea of creating a visual content of more illustrative character often a narration or abstraction. It also uses typography mainly to pass a message related to the artwork. We can differ these main techni- ques of street-art: the mural, the stencil, a wall-written text, wheat paste posters and stickers. Street art includes more backend studio work than graffiti art, espe- cially when it comes to stencils and wheat paste posters. Some researchers call street-art a „post-graffiti” form of art that evolved from graffiti itself.