Graffiti Archaeology is a project devoted to the study of graffiti-covered walls as they change over time. The core of the project is a timelapse collage, made of photos of graffiti taken at the same location by many different photographers over a span of several years. The photos were taken in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles and other cities, over a timespan from the late 1990's to the present.
Using the grafarc explorer, you can visit some classic graffiti spots, see what they looked like in the past, and explore how they have changed over the years.
The "grafarc explorer" interface which navigates the various layers of graffiti is well thought out and is a pleasure to use. Along the bottom of the site is a time-line with access points where photos have been taken. When a new date is clicked the image is loaded onto the previous wall with and orange box around the new layer.
This project reminded me of the Brian Jungen exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery. In one of the displays Brian Jungen used a router to carve out a design into the art gallery walls. The gallery wall had been painted hundreds of times with varying colours. The beveled edge of the carving revealed all the coloured layers of paint like layers of sediment.
