On a recent public broadcasting radio show in the United States, the graffiti issue was addressed in a very creative way. As most of us know and understand the graffiti from an artistic perspective, when it comes to graffiti on public monuments, the issue has always been paradoxically difficult to handle, raising questions such as: what are the limits of an art expression when the surface/support used is another fellow artist's piece? As stated in the radio show, "considering that graffiti comes from an Italian word (graffiato) meaning scratched, it figures the Italians would try to come up with a solution, a virtual solution anyway. "It's actually working beyond our wildest expectations," says Pietro Polsinelli, who's on the technical team at the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, the institution that oversees Florence's Duomo complex. Their new app called Autography allows visitors to monuments like the Giotto bell tower to post graffiti online instead of on the centuries-old marble walls. "People got it immediately and we got several hundred graffiti in the first few days. You can see them online (
http://autography.operaduomo.firenze.it ) , … and we've been watching people and many of them actually do the graffiti and then take a picture of it with a camera and they seem to be happy with that." But perhaps more impressive, says Polsinelli, is the fact that the number of graffiti on the monument walls appear so far to be decreasing dramatically. The inspiration for the app was to rid the historical monuments of the "scratches," the messages, and cartoonlike figures that scar the Renaissance marble walls. But Polsinelli says the anti-grafitti team had to think outside the box. "We wondered about the idea that graffiti is not just a negative concept. There's something there. People leave graffiti on the monuments because they want to leave a sign. They have something to say. So our idea was to use a playful, persuasive technology to somehow preserve the idea of leaving a sign, and at the same time, preserve the beauty of the monuments." In a way, visitors are encouraged to create graffiti, digital graffiti that is, by choosing from among a virtual pen, paintbrush, or spray can in a variety of colors and on a variety of virtual surfaces including wood, marble, or bronze that resemble the actual monument. So Instead of being arrested for vandalism, visitors can "leave a mark." Polsinelli says each graffiti will be published except those that contain insults or are inappropriate. For more information visit the PRI webpage:
http://www.pri.org/stories/2016-03-28/florence-tackles-problem-grafitti-playful-persuasive-technology