Evan Roth’s Graffiti Taxonomy: Paris seeks to discover the stylistic diversity among graffiti characters. The following video  gives a basic synopsis of the purpose and findings of the study, which was made possible with the help of Foundation Cartier.

Over 2,400 graffiti tags from a multitude of different artists and locations in Paris were photographed during a four day period in April, 2009. They were then archived and sorted by letter, allowing Roth to compare not only the diversity of how each character can be represented, but also how many times each letter was used. The ten most popular letters (which were A,E,I,K,N,O,R,S, T and U) were isolated for further study and eighteen tags of each letter were used to “represent the diversity and range of that specific character”. Some of these tags are simple and clean in design, some are almost illegible, some very complex and detailed.

Roth’s project showcases both the diversity in the way we use and represent language and the true artistry behind graffiti. For more information, visit the Graffiti Taxonomy website or Foundation Cartier.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 13th, 2009 at 11:06 am and is filed under Arts, Data Visualization, Public Art. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.