Since the birth of the early version hominid, visual art has been plastered on the

walls of caves and rock faces to the modern day metropolis vertical planes of mediums
also known as walls. One of the oldest and archaic forms of expression, with the creation
of visual expression came opposition which matured into repression also known as
counter expression. One mans mark is another mans blight to eradicate. Soothing
female voice emanating from television, possibly from Soho London.

Street art also known as Guerilla Art is the process of visual expression on any
mediums available to the artist within the confines of his community, e.g. Walls, buses,
train cars, fences, trash cans, small yappy dogs, farmers markets, bill boards, windows,
and especially anything else which hasnt been aforementioned pertaining to large cities
or the readers limitless imagination. The first appearance of street art was in the form of
name tagging in the post-Vietnam conflict era of New York City, more specifically the
Bronx and Manhattan. Rather illustrious gentlemen would spray paint or write their last
name followed by the street number where he respectfully resides. This pheonomena
soon spread throughout the entirety of New York and eventually the rest of the U.S. and
Western Europe. At which point the name and number transformed into an alias to ensure
anonymity and security for the graffiti writer, which with every scroll and stroke, his
quality improved and provided him with countless dimensions in which he could take his
artwork that can now tell a story or a witty joke through visual astheticsism.

One very important gentlemen responsible for the international of Guerrilla art, is
a Mr. Robert Del Naja 3D, a native of Bristol, England who upon returning from a

visit in New York City, brought back the spray paint can and the music genre hip hop.
Which he later utilized to pioneer the genre called trip hop with the forming of his band
Massive Attack, named primarily after his tagging crew known as The Massive. A dear
friend of 3Ds was also well invested in The Massive was a man who would later become
the iconic Guerrilla Artist, Banksy. If it werent for 3Ds introduction of spray paint
into the scene in Bristol, England, we can conclude that Bansky most likely wouldnt
have climbed the tower of prolificism as he did. Now Guerrilla art is basic visual
expression and ultimately area beautification.

Not all in society, especially American society believe this. Many believe graffiti
art is a gateway into the life of a derelict, first by starting to tag on public or private
property disassociated from said tagger, then said tagger slips into perrellious drug
addiction, which leads to grand larsony. A way to combat this societal dereliction many
believed, was the enactment of the Broken Windows Theory which was devised by James
Wilson and George Kelling in 1982. Their theory of disillusion conveyed the mentality
that, the minor quality of life crimes such as vandalism, public intoxication, pan handling,
vagrancy and homelessness contributed to a sense of lawlessness which would
incognitiently coerce residents of said inflicted community to engage in more violent
crimes. This theory however, seems to have been a lackluster appeal to middle class fears
about street crime, also completely ignoring structural and economical damage and
corruption. From this theory was born the movement of vigilante buffing, which is the
actions performed by common law abiding citizens taking the law into their own hands
by covering up said artwork with a bland color such as black, grey, and silver.

Grey and Silver is utilized in the act of buffing to convey the absence of
color, an expression of repression, an anti-art, a black hole rendering it less than
nothing.- Drew Hutchinson, Psychotherapist.
If you define a vigilante as somebody who is so motivated by their values
that they begin to operate outside of the confines of legality, or of mainstream networks
or communication. If thats what a vigilante is, then a graffiti writer is a vigilante. A
Social vigilante, and the same can be said about buffers.-Stefano Bloch, Urban Theorist,
University of Minnesota.

End state would be to say that these self proclaimed vigilante buffers are just as
guilty when it comes to breaking the law by defacing public and private property, as the
graffiti artists are, by projecting their expression on medium which arent rightfully
theirs, which brings another point to question. How can we define what is a rightful
possession.

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