Ecce Signum: the Significance of Writing As Image

This book explores the connections and disconnections encoded in verbal, written and visual languages in two parallel practices in contemporary Australian culture. Predominant is a research project involving Australian urban aerosol graffiti otherwise referred to as writing. Laterally, the other documents a studio practice informed by the first. In each, two forms of expression, graphism and language, are inextricably entwined. Writing might be hypothesized as a battle between insiders and outsiders. Alternatively the practice may be a counteraction to one-sided and authoritarian forms of communication, a response to typographic print culture or a retreat to a medieval chirographic culture. In writing, a confusion of texts, characterizations and iconography from various traditions and styles frequently converge on the walls. Multiple inter-texts coalesce in implicit visual and verbal expressions in the sub-culture that is urban graffiti.