banksy's forum

Beneath the newly vacated Eurostar Terminal at Waterloo Station, a huge creative space has been made of a tunnel handed over by the owners, who invited Banksy to create an installation. He responded by inviting a small army of graffiti artists to take part.

From Stencilling to freehand to tagging to just making your mark, every surface is covered with messages. Within this seeming chaos there are mutual respect for fellow artists, unspoken etiquettes and expectations, or rather limitations on content.


There are common themes such as corporations, the war on terror, and particularly the spectacle of power mediated through consumerism, tv, cctv and visible authorities such as the police. The space has a haunting feeling of presences and activity that was evidently once there. This keeps the dialogue live and sustains it both by perpetually encouraging participation and, ironically for this subbversive context, enforces the rules. Indeed banksy is seen as the head of this community, and without directly defacing his defacements, others question, comment on, praise and criticize his work and ethics.

What banksy has created is a community with ideas sharing, communication, rules and most importantly, the sustaining and keeping alive of this society by constantly creating new stuff.

British Gas goes Sicilian

This arrived through my letterbox today, though it may as well have arrived through my window tied to a brick.

Not content with staggering price rises and outrageous profits for its shareholders, it seems British Gas has diversified into running a protection racket. The delivery of the proposition is an insult to even the most ethically-loose advertising designer.

Whilst tugging at the heart strings with its use of stories of families being saved in a hand-made cut-and-paste genuine newspaper article aesthetic which is as semantically subtle as a sledgehammer in the face, it warns us that the solution to this invisible, un-smellable, un-tasteable killer is forking out for 'Homecare(TM) 100 for just £15 a month' which is just a subscription to boiler maintenance.

It finishes with 'Don't wait, sign up today and ensure you are protected.' In context it psychologically translates as 'your family might die in a nasty accident tonight. Give us money and we'll make sure that doesn't happen.'

Rather than pay them da money, I'd plump for a carbon monoxide detector for about £3 a year and check it.