Evan Roth, Graffiti Research Lab

Evan is interested in the art that connects with popular culture and free culture.

"Lazy like a fox" - Eric Raymond. Maximum impact for minimum effort. In particular, he became interested in hacker culture and how it could be applied in art. First example was adding a small, submersive, message to official US Mail postcards and placing them back into the post office. Another example was using tin foil (I think) letters to write messages on things inside backpacks that would show up on security x-ray machines, e.g. "Mind Your Own Buisness"

{Sorry missing capturing this because he is too interesting!}

He teaches a class where you grade depends on how many hits/likes etc. you get on your online art stuff. Brilliant! Even looks to open source model of distribution - release early and often. Art is research - it is not something you polish and complete in a room before showing in a gallery.

Another example was a video he did with typographic illustrations for Jay-Z.

Now talking about the Graffiti Research Lab and how it fits with open source ideas and how it has morphed into F.A.T. He talked about the "Tootsie Pop" style of his work. There may be a serious message at the heart but it is wrapped up in fun.

He has created a graffiti markup language to capture (and project) graffiti - for archiving and for creating. It is open source and has been adopted and used by others.

{This post completely fails to capture how good this chap was. I hope it has been videoed.}

He wants children to get computers they can hack!