The Art Of Urban Warfare The Global Urban Network

The Art of Urban Warfare The Global Urban Network of Street Art

Abstract

This study examines street art as a form of popular culture, popular communication, and popular spatial resistance that connects cities and the people in them. Taking a cultural studies approach, it asserts that street art serves not only as a medium for selfexpression, but as a means for reclaiming public spaces, communicating to the masses, and forming local and global social networks. In the context of the discourse on cultural globalization, global cities, and global city network theory, it argues that street art and the artists who create it form inter-city networks of ‘multi-local’ popular resistance. Newly compiled quantitative data from six global artists produce complete network matrices and visualizations representative of a weighted, directional network of eight cities. Social network analysis is used in demonstrating this global urban network of street art, and discussing its properties and wider implications. The analysis illustrates the existence of global urban networks based on subcultural practice, suggesting an important new way of looking at global city networks and revealing the potential for other such studies.

“Where are the Champions of Open Spaces?” on construction site, the Borough, London. Photo by the author, 2004.