Fi5e: Grafitti Analysis

In unannounced spots around Manhattan and Brooklyn you can now see grafitti tags in a new lights. Literally.

Fi5e, a student of Parsons Master of Fine Arts in Design and Technology programme, has been digitizing grafitti artists at work. They draw on a glass plate with a fat marker that has a pen light attached to it. A camera behind the glass captures the movement of the light and a software analyzes the input. The result is a record not just of the tag itself, but of the gestures that created it.

Once recorded, a tag can be algorithmically recreated and played back. The tag can also be turned into a 3-dimensional shape, and the outline of the grafitti artists is also shown. By setting up a video projector in public spaces, Fi5e has been creating impromptu tagging sessions on public buildings without fear of legal repercussions. The tags turn into objects of light, temporary and ephemeral. Whether you’re a supporter of street art or not, you can finally enjoy the beauty of tags without controversy.

There is a newspaper article on the project over at New York Daily News. Fi5e also maintains a nice blog which has more grafitti info including sketches by the artists used in the Grafitti Analysis project. He is also the mastermind behind the "Explicit Content Only" version of NWA’s classic album “Straight Outta Compton”.

For another digitized grafitti classic, see Jürg Lehni’s Hektor, the Grafitti Output Device.