El Tono's Line and Surface

At least ten years ago I was asked to write the accompanying texts for a book that would document the work of a number of street artists. The book never materialized but through it I was introduced to the post-graffiti street art scene which at the time was at a period of incredible artistic ferment and which was also a very lively international scene with many artist collaborating. Fond memories of great parties! El Tono was one the people to be covered in the book. He is from France originally and was living in Barcelona at the time, I never got to meet him but his work was well known. Even between 30 other street artists his style (abstract tuning forks in bold lines and bright colours) immediately stood out, no easy thing. But, as these things go, the scene imploded under its own weight, but the people involved didn't stop. This is how it happened that Local boy W%D, who at the time was running the popular street art website Stickit is now using the name to run a small publishing firm and his latest release is 'Line and Surface', a nearly 100 page-long overview of a decade of El Tono. It is well documented, beautiful to look at, and it is amazing to see how El Tono's work has evolved from project to project. The best things for me: I wrote a tiny bit for the book, did get to meet El Tono and just got back from a great release party.

  

Digger psycholudology reclaims the street

The San Franscisco Diggers (earlier, more in the future) were the anti-hippie radicals working inside Haight-Ashbury. 'Manhood in the Age of Aquarius' is an excellent on-line resource by Tim Hodgdon on the history of the Diggers and in this book we find the following explanation for an event that combines motives from the future Reclaim the Street movement with play tactics from psychogeo inspired street art. 

The Diggers' first happening, on 31 October 1966, attempted to reclaim the street as free territory.

They announced the event in thousands of handbills distributed in advance. The key to deciphering the cryptic text was a direct quotation from McLuhan: "an informed public is its own worst enemy." As "public enemies," the Diggers intended to inform the public by offering it a new frame of reference: in the left-hand column of the handbill they rendered a likeness of a picture frame, "the Digger Square," through which the public could watch a "reality" quite different from that framed by a television screen—a medium that, contrary to Abraham Lincoln's aphorism, "FOOLS ALL OF THE PUBLIC ALL OF THE TIME." Thus, "The Public is Any Fool On The Street," and every fool knew that "PUBLIC STREETS CONVEY MACHINES—ONLY A FOOL WALKS IN TRAFFIC."

But the Diggers saw the state regulation of pedestrians as designed to maximize the flow of traffic for the benefit of commercial interests. To raise consciousness of how deeply those interests restricted individual freedom of movement for the benefit of the few, the Diggers invited the public to play "THE INTERSECTION GAME," which "Any number of fools can play." They drew a diagram, roughly the same size as the Digger Square, of various ways to cross an intersection on foot, and placed it in the right-hand column. They urged people to "BRING A SQUARE"—perhaps a frame, or perhaps a person—"TO DIG THE INTERSECTION GAME" at 5:30 PM, at the intersection of Haight and Masonic Streets.

On the appointed Monday evening, the Diggers set up their yellow, wooden Free Frame of Reference at the corner of Haight and Masonic. With two puppets borrowed from the Mime Troupe (each standing about eight feet high, and requiring the coordinated efforts of two skilled operators located inside), they warmed up a crowd of about five hundred with a skit, "Any Fool on the Street," in which the puppets passed repeatedly through the Frame while carrying on an absurd, boisterous argument about which side constituted the "inside." With the assembled throng now primed for participation, the Diggers proceeded to the next stage of their plan. They invited the assembled crowd to stroll the crosswalks, in disregard of traffic law, creating as many geometrical figures as possible. Traffic came to a standstill.