Word: lasered
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...While most graffiti crews use spray paint to mark buildings and urban infrastructure, Roth and Powderly, the artists behind the Graffiti Research Lab, have perfected a unique form of temporary high-tech graffiti they call laser tagging that utilizes a laser pointer in lieu of paint, a projector in place of a spray. Instead of hitting dark subway tunnels and back alleys, they turn their attention to public places such as skyscrapers and monuments. A growing legion of fans turn out regularly to witness live demonstrations of their light shows (see video of their latest graffiti missions), but most...
...basic idea for laser tag was to create free-speech machines - to find ways of helping people say things at a scale and in a place where you normally have people controlling speech," Powderly says. "Doing it in an art museum was never the intent. Some days we think it's an art project, but other days it seems like an activism project, bringing together hackers and engineers...
...artists started laser tagging in earnest only a year ago; they devised the basic concept while art fellows at Eyebeam, an art and technology center in New York where Powderly and Roth refined their open-source technology. The system is simple: The duo will locate an appropriate building or structure (avoiding buildings with windows to prevent any accidental laser-eye injuries) and aim the projector at the surface; with each flick of the laser pointer, the computer software registers a streak of light (see the equipment). The artists have pointed their projectors at everything from bridges in New York City...
...evidenced by those unlikely guests at the MoMA opening - some of whom used the occasion to digitally spray comments mocking both the opening night crowd and the institution itself - the GRL seems to be inhabiting two worlds simultaneously. Powderly has called his laser tag device a "weapon of mass defacement." But their light art disappears with flip of a power switch, making it not necessarily illegal in some municipalities. "We talk about graffiti a lot," Roth says, "People view graffiti differently, some think of graffiti as an end design, but others think of it as an action, and by graffiti...
...graffiti] wasn't high-tech. If you look back, you had spray cans - this form of technology that was a little too new to be considered an art form - and this billion-dollar transportation system that taggers used to spread their art. It's not all that different from laser pointers, a new technology, and this immense infrastructure that you find in urban areas...