Abseil Graffiti
The confluence of two extreme(ly annoying) hobbies, the return of digital Doggerland and danger damage dangles.
It feels just as difficult to tell someone I’m a rock climber as it does that I’m a graffiti writer. ‘Extreme sports enthusiast’ conjures images of: Long-term-single white men, indoor bouldering evangelists and the gradual melding of this hobby into dress, habits and lifestyle. Look for house keys on a carabiner, down jackets in the supermarket chilled aisle or a campervan that neither functions well as a house nor as a van.
Me being a proper rock climber
I used to avoid talking about these for fear of condemnation, now it’s a fear of the opposite. Did I watch the climbing in the Olympics? Do I like Banksy? Sorry, can we talk about abseil graffiti instead?
When two of the world's most annoying hobbies meet, graffiti writers employ modern climbing techniques and equipment to paint high up, vertically or in usually inaccessible areas. Once the roof is accessed, the rope is fixed at the top and hung down the side. From there the person climbs out over the edge with a device for descending and ascending the rope.
Rams MSK
Rams MSK and Chuck with a perfect comparison between modern and traditional graffiti
Rams is a graffiti writer from Aotearoa New Zealand who is currently on a generation-defining international vertical graffiti rampage, utilizing a combination of techniques and styles that have been simmering within graffiti culture for decades.
These techniques have been used by graffiti writers since almost the beginning of this art form. Only now are we seeing an explicitly vertical style starting to form. Previous abseil graffiti stuck too rigorously to techniques established with two feet on the ground. Though I’m impressed by the commanding position of these paintings, I’m not really inspired by the perceived element of danger. If you’re setting things up right, it’s safer than walking across a busy road. That said, there are so few who could execute their practise, at night, on the side of a building, illegally.
Since its inception as an art-form half a century ago graffiti has looked much the same to the layperson. Though abseil graffiti has in recent years arguably broken these bounds, it’s only in Rams that we see someone truly innovating on this new axis. Their work is eye catching even when it’s horizontal, for me, it’s conceptually perfect graffiti. It does everything graffiti should: It demonstrates clear evolution from a basis of stylistic letters, via historical graffiti tropes, to new innovative ground. As these intense modern conditions forge new styles within graffiti-art, each piece holds decipherable clues to the artists origins and influences.
1UP Crew, Mr Paradox, Rams MSK
Pixacao
Vertical lettering styles undoubtedly have their home in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where traditional graffiti/street art exists just like the kind we recognise world wide. There is however an entirely separate and unique sect that operates in Brazilian graffiti culture: Pixacao, translated as ‘writing with pitch’. Policy has long since moved people to graffiti, records of Pixacao follow the various political upheavals of Brazil’s past. Pitch was an accessible medium for those repairing roofs, coracles or injustices.
This historic precedence was infused with the runic lettering of 80’s heavy metal band’s album covers, along with the spray can and the culture that had attached itself to the invention.
Today these simple yet camouflaged Germanic runes make their way onto the sides of buildings symbolic of the stark inequalities that graffiti seems to thrive amongst. Extreme social conditions have developed this lettering into an isolated Madagascan evolutionary branch of graffiti-art.
As ever with graffiti art, it’s not just the style or the prominence of your art that gets you respect, it’s the daring: Pixadores are known for climbing these huge buildings without ropes. When I look at Pixacao, I work out whether someone is either hanging over an edge and painting downwards, leaning out over the side of a balcony or has climbed hand over hand from the bottom of the building.
Pixadores that most likely descended from the rooftop using the holes in the building, probably didn’t even use climbing chalk or tiny shoes either
Note the graffiti follows the features on the building that are climbable
In a continuation from their stylistic journey, starting as Proto-Germanic runes 2000 years ago, to the streets of Sao Paulo, they arrived back in the hands of Berlin artist Mr Paradox. An unusual stylistic outlier in Europe, they have long been unique in using a blend of Pixacao and rappelling techniques. These vertical runes were used not to identify oneself as part of the Pixador scene, but to define a contrast with the rest of Europe’s standard graffiti. The ideals of Pixacao are transposed onto the cleanly walls of Berlin, with German efficiency. This re-branching of once isolated styles is largely due to the internet’s recent accessibility and visual-content focus. It’s Madagascar re-joining mainland Africa, it’s the return of Doggerland. Graffiti was once stylistically defined country by country, even city by city. Styles that have taken 30 years to mature in isolation are now open to being influenced and to influence anyone, anywhere.
Paradox graffiti in Berlin, did you notice the white Pixacao on the front of the building running along it?
Elder Futhark Runes from a while ago
Culturally Unique Graffiti Styles
New Zealand is another island known for its unusual isolated evolution. Before the mass image sharing platforms, small coincidences and references influenced stylistic shifts that were gradual yet gigantic like the tectonic movements creating the island itself. In the 1940’s, Latin American art and tattoo styles influenced a form of graffiti art that became the foundation of Los Angeles graffiti style. Placas and ‘roll calls’ of gang members were painted on streets, demarcating them as gang territory as a means of protecting themselves, identifying the areas they controlled to avoid needless confrontation. These unique styles made their way to New Zealand and influenced the ‘straights’ lettering style, where whole crews are given a roll call in a similar fashion.
For its comparatively small population New Zealand is known today for having a thriving and unique graffiti scene. With several artists who have pushed graffiti to its limits and beyond, into murals and fine art. These artists not only created a series of influential works through many shifts in their practise, but created a framework that continues to inform the strategies of commercial artists around the world.
The huge collaborative murals by TMD crew
When I look back at the massive murals created by TMD crew in New Zealand in the 2010’s, I’m as glad this style is as extinct as the terrifying native Haast’s Eagle (it’s wing span could reach up to 3m!). Though these works are despicably ugly in retrospect I can pick out many of the elements that are now extremely common in modern graffiti-art. I can also remember seeing them at the time and being utterly blown away. These collaborative works were often painted by several artists moving freely between each other’s work, going against graffiti’s ‘rules’ that focus on cultivating your own personal style in isolation. ‘Netch’ a mocking combination of nek-level and next-echelon was what this style came to be known as. The core techniques that Rams uses to create his glossy, kinetic letters can be found in these pieces. It’s in this way that the scene was an incubator for experimental style trends that are only really coming into their own 10 years later.
Arriving in the USA, Rams joined what is arguably the most notorious graffiti crew in the world MSK: Mad Society Kings. It may seem like a silly name, or a silly thing to do if you’re not part of the graffiti fraternity. But it’s within crews that we see graffiti evolve most rapidly. The often violence infused competitive sport of graffiti writing sees people guard their techniques and skills fiercely. It’s only within a crew that the collaborative nature really pushes the art forward, in parallel to the intense competition. Without inter-crew collaboration none of the evolutionary trends we see in graffiti would occur.
Crews are just another stylistic ecosystem, somewhere between culture and personality. Graffiti is always as unique as our handwriting, though may share common stylistic traits from the schooling we shared with others. When graffiti is at it’s most perplexing and confronting on the side of tall buildings, the subtle clues as to who a person is are all the more special.
In an interview Rams talks about him ‘getting shit’ for having a similar style to Askew, one of the key ‘Netch’ artists and a crew-mate. Rams goes on to unashamedly describe a renaissance style apprenticeship, under one of the great masters of graffiti-art. It’s clear how this has influenced such a monumental shift in graffiti art, but to compare the Netch paintings with abseil graffiti asking what was more influential would be unfair. Within crews that stretch across generations, like MSK or TMD, it becomes less about the individuals. When you have had almost 30 years of artists excelling across disciplines it is clear how important it is to be part of and to represent a crew.
Similarities between Askew and Rams
URBEX
My preparation for this unusual blend of hobbies was Urbex, 2010’s bouldering-esque craze. It saw me scaling buildings and infrastructure long before I would climb with a chalk bag and tiny crushing shoes, or a bag full of paint. One of the first notable urban climbing expeditions was to the top of a crane in nearby Newcastle. I enjoyed the climbing and the infiltration, but not much can be said for my night time photography skills.
Looking along the crane and then downwards, through the grate
Wriggling out from underneath the Portakabin that marked the weakest edge of this dark and silent construction site’s perimeter, I remember the elation. Looking back, it does seem to be the beginning of an empowerment in these unusual activities. The excitement is perceptible in my pictures from that time, as the night continued there are many pictures I almost wouldn’t believe unless they had Exif data.
The Sage in Gateshead
So when I head off to do graffiti in the night, with a rope, climbing gear and a bag of spray paint, it feels sickeningly normal. I chose a derelict site where graffiti and I are at home, all of the ground level walls were already painted. More importantly, I found a mid-sized silver birch stood above a 20m concrete wall. The place was so long abandoned that this tree had sprouted up through a crack and flourished enough to entrust my life to. I tied my rope around the tree, attached my belay device, and carefully placed the rope over an edge blunted with moss, scrambling from the root-twisted mud onto a sheer concrete wall.
After you are out over the edge, dangling from a glorified sapling with a bag of paint between your legs, an unusual feeling of resigned calm washes over you. Gently testing the lowering device, usually a daytime sports one, now a night-time crime one, I pulled the lever and lowered into place where my first letter would start. Feelings of vulnerability are transcended once you realise how much of a commanding position you occupy on a rope, high above, at night.
If you've ever watched someone's feet stroll by whilst you're secreted and your heart has seemingly thudded louder than the gentle breaths through your nose, or been high up in the dark watching a light-bathed ground section of the city that reveals all, you understand how operating outside of the norm cloaks you. My first forays onto rooftops I crept around, peeking at the people down below. It was often revellers, with bright lights staining their vision and their eyes darting between the subtle body language revealed and concealed by their compatriots. It’s only when you get back down to that level and realise that even if someone did look up for more than a glance, you would appear as good as darkness to them.
I was surprised at how little surface area is available to you, hanging straight down on the rope. Swinging side to side would give you more width, but I knew this gentle rocking would as good as saw my rope in half on the concrete edge it was running over. As usual I painted at first frantically, slowing to calmly. Passing the can to each hand I managed to extend my letters reach. After I finished my last letter, I encountered a brief panic as I planted my feet on the wall to begin ascending and they skated through the still wet paint. I struggled my way to the top, leaving swipes of hands and feet through it, where I tried to get purchase on the wall.
When I returned in the morning, arms still laden with a dull ache, hands feeling the ghost of a death-gripped rope, last nights powerful experience didn’t seem evidenced in the light of day. With the graffiti not standing out amongst the dereliction, it was clear how much cities amplify the shock value. The graffiti writers choose their spots wisely. They’re masters of marketing, with the benefit of not having to sell you anything or follow any laws.
Danger Damage Dangle
This is graffiti working amongst a different type of dereliction, rather than the sprawling factories and low level abandonments that we associate with American cities in decline, we now have half finished skyscrapers and towers. The competition for both space and our attention has become more intense too. Conglomerates hoard and encroach our space while at once saying ‘There is no space for you’.
Inequality is so strongly linked with graffiti’s creation and evolution. The very reason we know about New York or Sao Paulo is because of the inhumane inequalities that define them. Among corporate lumbering giants, the mobility of the dispossessed makes graffiti a poignant reminder of the power of individuals.
You are among the few if you believe this is a righteously wielded power. Most people I talk to about graffiti are at least intimidated by it, usually oppressed and occasionally disgusted. Although I constantly make excuses for these artists I can also see how oppressive and intimidating the graffiti looks in comparison to clean walls. It does depend on how you feel about those clean walls though. If you feel safe, embraced by these huge cities, you’re given trust and mobility, of course you’re going to want to stop the walls from screaming. Graffiti is a reaction to much more horrific social crimes, perpetuated by the people for who the cities have always worked for.
Regardless of whether artists or onlookers agree it’s a powerful statement, artists like Rams continue to practise this personally powerful act, which feels as good as a natural impulse for some. Whether its a bucket of tar that calls you during a dictatorship, or blank walls of Airbnb flats in your neighbourhood. From the position, style and execution of graffiti we can always read much more than a name.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Bonus content: The only other graffiti that comes to mind when I imagine something that looks different enough to standard graffiti to a layperson (but still is graffiti)
Bonus content: me riding a skateboard in a culvert
