#banksyinstockholm - The politics of street art and spatiality

 

Tindra Thor*

*Phd-student, Department of Media Studies, Stockholm University, Sweden (tindra.thor@ims.su.se)

 

ABSTRACT

In March 2014, Swedish news agencies received an anonymous handwritten letter stating that ‘Banksy’ – currently probably the world’s most famous street artist – would hold his first “official unofficial exhibit in Sweden”. The validity of this press release was heavily debated throughout the week in Swedish media. Would this mythical street artist whose real name no one knows make an appearance in Stockholm? Could it be a PR stunt and if it were, would it be worth seeing anyway? On Sunday 23 March 8000 people gathered to find out.

Using discourse analysis, this article explores #banksyinstockholm as an urban moment of artistic and spatial improvisation in relation to ideas on spatial subversion, paradoxical space, and aesthetic cosmopolitanism. The moment centers around three main subjectivities – the Hipster, the Doubters and ‘Banksy’, which all become discursive creators/creations of the event through simultaneous presences on the Internet and on-site. The art space becomes a temporal strategy, which holds the potential of displacing and resisting the hegemonic makings of urban space. Furthermore, the exploration points to how a discursive construction of a mediated city event attaches and detaches subjects to and from specific places, performances and symbolisms and how notions of place, performance, dialogue and subjects are (re)negotiated in that process.

Keywords: ‘Banksy’; graffiti and street art; artistic interventions; spatial creation; cosmopolitan space.

 

Introduction

In March 2014, Swedish news agencies received an anonymous handwritten letter stating that ‘Banksy’ – probably the world’s most famous street artist – would hold his first “official unofficial exhibit in Sweden” at a street in Stockholm and that the exhibition would ”reclaim the ephemeral nature of this kind of work and invite the audience to make intrusions themselves” (Gustavsson, 18 March). During the week, ads started to appear in the city stating that the event would take place at the street Hudiksvallsgatan in the center of Stockholm between 1 and 4 pm. Advertisement space owners were completely unaware that the ads had been put up and no one knew where they came from. Throughout the week, a fierce debate emerged in news papers, online forums and TV news programs. The topic of debate was the question whether it could be true or not. Would ‘Banksy’, the mythical street artist whose real name no one knows, actually make an appearance in Stockholm? Could it be a PR stunt? And even if were, would it be worth seeing anyway?

On Sunday, the 23rd of March 8000 people gathered at the indicated street in Stockholm. At precisely 1 pm a jogger with a whistle appeared. The jogger started blowing the whistle and the crowd started following him. The jogger led the crowd to a building at a nearby construction site. This was the only old building left in the construction area that had not yet been torn down in order to make room for new apartment buildings.

 

 

Twitter was constantly fed with information on what happened under the hashtag #banksyinstockholm. People who found themselves too far back to see anything asked for more Tweets on what went on at the front of the crowd. The crowd mostly consisted of male and female (white)¹ younger people, with high cultural and/or economic capital. A substantial segment of the crowd did however consist of people well beyond their 20’s but the ones who participated both on-site and on the Internet appeared to be part of the younger crowd.

Inside the exhibition hall, the crowd was met by a number of art installations. Initially, people were walking around watching the installations, speculating on Twitter on what they were witnessing. After a while, the visitors found spray cans that had been left in the building. People started painting the walls, walls were torn down and people explored and appropriated the hidden spaces of the building. Other visitors started removed pieces from the installations and took them from the site. In one of the art installations, there were living mice, which a woman took on her to take care of.

At the time of this event, the city of Stockholm practiced a zero tolerance policy on graffiti. The zero tolerance policy entailed a sanitation warranty that stated that all graffiti within Stockholm would be sanitized within 24 hours. The zero tolerance policy was excommunicated in October 2014 but at the time of the event the policy was still in play.² Graffiti appearing in the streets of Stockholm is generally referred to as ‘klotter’, which could be translated into ‘scribble’, or ‘doodle’. At the time of the event, street art appearing in Stockholm would in most forms have been banished. For example, in 2011, an art organization tried to organize a festival for street-/graffiti artists but was counteracted by the city through banning of advertising and information about the festival on public bulletin boards. This has been the case even though the festival would be held within a controlled setting where participants would be able to use provisional walls intended for that specific purpose. The reason for the ban according to the city was that the practice should not be encouraged (Hellekant, 2012). This shows how the practice is controversial in ‘itself’. One the one hand street art becomes controversial due to the place where it usually is performed or made, but on the other hand the performance is so intrinsically connected to ‘the streets’ that even when it is made somewhere else than in ‘the streets’ it is still controversial. When put in a different setting, an art gallery or in a studio, it changes but it still keeps its strong connotations to the urban space. In that sense, the place of a graffiti piece enables the piece to be understood as graffiti at the same time as the place is becoming through the making of the piece and the artistic performance. Consequently, the performance becomes impossible to imagine without the place of ‘the streets’ or the urban space.

Chantal Mouffe (2007) reminds us that all art is political, but due to controversy of street art, in Stockholm as well as many other locations, these practices explicitly point to the relationship between art and politics – particularly street art and politics. In this specific setting and at this particular event the relationship between art and politics becomes evident, but the event also points to the complexity of this relationship, because what was the city of Stockholm to do if ‘Banksy’ actually would appear and perform his work in Stockholm? Banksies have been sold at auctions for 1,1 million USD (Wetherbe, June 4, 2013). If a genuine ‘Banksy’ piece would appear in Stockholm, “will the city obey the zero tolerance or will they keep it?” someone asked on the online discussion forum Flashback (MrMono, F#10). Is it plausible that work made by the world’s most famous street artist would be sanitized?

After the event, there was much speculation on whether ‘Banksy’ actually had been involved and also on whom, if not ‘Banksy’, might have been the maker of the exhibition. ‘Banksy’ has been known to do similar urban interventions before,³ but the artist was never seen and his publicist denied his involvement. What was left of the exhibition after the closing was either stolen by the exhibition visitors or removed. Although most people engaged in the event were in doubt that this was an actual ‘Banksy’ exhibition the speculations flourished on what the people taking part had experienced. What everybody wanted to know was of course what was #banksyinstockholm and was ‘Banksy’ actually there?

 

The City, media and cosmopolitanizing artistic interventions

The global city is a node for flows of communications and mediations and a space of diverse and (possibly) unexpected encounters. Approximately 54 % of the world’s populations live in urban areas and by 2050 this number is expected to increase to 66 % (UN, 2014). According to Myria Georgiou the city is as “unpredictable, exciting and fearsome” as it is potentially welcoming and presenting of possibilities for seeing “self and others as part of the urban story” (Georgiou, 2013, p. 2). The unpredictability of these possibilities is also its challenge. Although the urban space and its mediations provide possibilities for encounters of difference, it is also in the encounter of difference that, the not always easy process of, change and transformations materialize. These transformative processes can also be discussed in terms of cosmopolitanization (Beck, 2006), in this case referring to the process in which the urban is constantly exposed to difference through “mediated and interpersonal communication” (Georgiou, 2013, p. 3). It is in these unpredictable and open-ended processes that the urban is both transformed and transforming. Such transformative and paradoxical processes where the known and the unknown encounter and sometimes clashes characterize the contemporary urban condition.

There are millions of people following Instagram accounts and Facebook pages displaying street art, emphasizing the wide-reaching political potentialities of these arts.⁴ These mediations play a big part in telling the mediated stories of the urban condition for global audiences and in creating and communicating the mediated city. These processes increase the momentum of street art’s role in what Oli Mould describes as the “re-interpretation of our increasingly diversified and crowded cities” (2009, p. 738). #banksyinstockholm is no exception and is an event where not only art but also the city, is created and subverted collaboratively through physical and virtual site performance and action. The spatially and aesthetically subversive character of these performances shows how and when art becomes politics, and how politics is made through performative art.

As a mediated urban event #banksyinstockholm also points to how a discursive construction of an event attaches and detaches signifiers to and from specific places, performances and symbolisms and how notions of place, performance, and subjects are (re)negotiated in that process. The event becomes a performance that is absent, yet present; the performers are no one and everyone; the space enables and disables, and all is becoming through and at a specific place. As such the event raises questions on the relevance of place and locality, how this becomes part of shaping public artworks as well as the maker of artworks and what social meaning the event holds. The mediated place becomes the node where the everyday phenomena of graffiti become the everyday amplified, a hyper-everyday, and the everyday 2.0.

Chris Hudson (in Grierson & Sharp, 2013, pp. 247-260) writes that artistic interventions have the potential of generating a re-imagination of the urban and to renegotiate the connection between the local and the global. Drawing on Ash Amin (Amin & Thrift, 2002), Hudson points out that each urban moment can spark performative improvisations. #banksyinstockholm is an urban event that invited such improvisations. Although contemporary urban encounters are complex, paradoxical and challenging, the open-endedness is also always a possibility and holds a cosmopolitan potential for openness and hospitality. The creation of this place becomes as a temporal strategy, which holds the potential of displacing and resisting the hegemonic making of urban space. The paradoxicality of space consequently becomes as a (re)negotiation of contemporary hegemonic conceptualizations of the aesthetics of urban space through spatial and artistic performances and interventions. Therefore, this article explores how political and spatial potentialities are becoming through articulations of the #banksyinstockholm event. The exploration will draw on the concept of aesthetic cosmopolitanism as discussed by Nikos Papastergiadis (2012). Focus is directed towards the paradoxical becoming of space, art, and politics at the event and on discursive analysis of the narratives creating the event.

The remainder of the article is structured as follows. After presenting methodology and data, the main theoretical points of departure will be discussed. The substantial empirical section is structured around the three main subjectivities that are articulated as participants or co-creators of the event – the Hipster, the Doubters and, of course, Banksy.

 

Methodology and data

The method is inspired by discourse analysis as described by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe (1985). In order to be able to map out how the event is articulated and constructed the data has been organized around the identification of privileged signs. These privileged signs will be described in terms of ‘nodal points’ or ‘floating signifiers’, which are discursive signs that acquire meaning through the practice of articulation (Laclau & Mouffe, 1985, p. 113). A nodal point is a central sign with partially fixed meaning (ibid, p. 112) around which the discourse is ordered, and from which other signs acquire meaning. A privileged sign has been identified as such when it is either frequently appearing in the material or a sign that other signs gain meaning from. In certain graffiti cultures, a nodal point could, for example, be hip-hop or tags. Within that specific discourse these signs have a rather fixed meaning. There are also other privileged signs that in contrast lack a fixed or stable meaning. These signs are especially subject to discursive renegotiation and struggle. Such a sign is called a floating signifier. A floating signifier is a sign that different discourses struggles to articulate in their own specific way and is especially open for different kinds of meanings (Jørgensen & Phillips, 2002, p. 28). Clearly different discourses partially fix different signs. Conversely different discourses partially fix one specific sign in different ways. In other words various discourses can make a sign meaningful in different ways. Consequently the sign ‘Banksy’ is constructed differently depending on which discourse the sign is articulated with.

The discussion below is organized around privileged signs and subjects in the material. The most privileged sign is ‘Banksy’ and through the articulation of “Banksy” other signs and subjects are also becoming. Each of these subjects creates different discourses focused on the event, offers their own articulation of ‘Banksy’, and connects the event to various other signs. Another privileged sign (and subject) is “the Hipster” for example. “The Hipster” is becoming through a certain relationship to the sign “Banksy” and is thereby also co-creating ‘Banksy’. Each of these privileged signs is constructed though chains of equivalences. In other words the privileged signs, or subjects, are considered as becomings shaped by compilations of other signs, which are ascribed to the privileged sign.

The data primarily consists of 363 tweets posted on Twitter that included the hash tag #banksyinstockholm and a discussion thread of 151 posts on the online forum Flashback (https://www.flashback.org/t2340025). Flashback is a rather controversial discussion forum known for its plainspoken and often un-censored discussions on a wide range of topics such as how to falsify medical documents, places to visit when in Gambia, how Google is controlling everyone and all you would like to know about Burger King and what people think about their burgers, to name a few examples. One thing is for sure – if something happens in the news, there will be a Flashback conspiracy theory about it. Flashback has 984 312 members in total and the analyzed thread attracted 63 878 viewings.⁵

Furthermore, the analyzed corpus comprises 18 news articles (including the embedded webcasts in the articles) and two personal interviews with active street- and graffiti artists in Stockholm. The news articles come from online news media in Sweden. There were more articles on the subject than the ones included in the material, which were discarded since they referred to the same sources as, and were almost identical to articles already included as data. All the analyzed materials, apart from two news articles, are in Swedish. All directly cited material is translated from Swedish into English by the author. Quotes from Flashback refer to the forum username/author and are also marked with an F (for Flashback) and the number of the post in the discussion thread.

At the time of the event I was simultaneously “lurking” (Waldron, 2012) on Twitter, Flashback and the physical site. I did not actively engage in the event but “lurked” inside and outside of the exhibition hall. I was also overseeing what happened at the physical site from a playground located on a hill next to the exhibition hall. Focus was however directed towards the mediations of the event on Twitter and Flashback. The personal interviewees’ have been rendered anonymous. Consequently, their names or aliases do not appear in the text. The Flashback- and Twitter discussions are completely public and do not require a login or such to access. Therefore all citations and references to forum posts and Tweets show aliases/names under which the post is made.

 

Theorizing event and place: Artistic, political and cosmopolitan becomings

#banksyinstockholm is here conceptualized as place as an event. Such an event is understood as a place by what Doreen Massey calls “throwntogetherness” (Massey, 2005, p. 140). A place in this sense never exists pre discursively. It cannot be understood as an ‘it’ or a ‘thing’ and places are never settled. Places become “moments of encounter” (Amin and Thrift, 2002, as cited in Dickens, 2008) and as events of coinciding and never pre-given trajectories. Therefore, the constitution of a place is always characterized by openness, multiplicity, and negotiation. Each place becomes unique in space and time because it is never the same as either before or after, and; a place is never the same here or there. This also makes the constitution of place a political question. In the collapse of narratives and relations between the human and the non-human into an event, these different components are compelled into a relation to the context. Spaces are consequently communicative agents as the spatial disposition of the space, including the aesthetics and form of the space, mediate an understanding of the space, which is created in multilogue with performing subjects within the space. All subjectifications are trajectories of narratives and are becoming in narratives. It is these narratives and trajectories that are thrown together in place as an event.

As Stockholm practiced a zero tolerance policy, street art and graffiti in this geographical locality is explicitly political. Such performances therefore always challenge the dominance strategies of ‘public space’ and can be considered as cases of ‘spatial subversion’ (Rose, 1993). Further they can be seen as interventions in what Lefebvre calls the dominance of space (Lefebvre, 1991) and highlights how the institutionalization of ‘public space’ conceals the fundamental state of conflict of the ‘public’ (Lefort, 2012. Cf. Deutsche, 1996; Massey, 2005).

The #banksyinstockholm event constitutes a special case of political, artistic creation and spatial subversion. The intervening potential of the event and the performances creating the event creates a space that is in-between. It becomes a paradoxical space or what Homi Bhabha (1994) calls a “hybrid space”. Such space is paradoxical as it is neither challenging nor unchallenging. The line between what is legitimate respectively what is illegitimate is blurred and the event further points to the impossibility of drawing such a line. Graffiti and street art was officially illegal in Stockholm but within certain art discourses they could be considered as legitimate artistic expressions. From the point of view of the established and formally institutionalized political discourse and the cultural politics in Stockholm, graffiti and street art were nonetheless examples of illegitimate (artistic) practice.

It is not only the art form at stake here; it is also the locations of the making of it. When graffiti or street art is made, or not made for that matter, the place of making/non-making is politicized. The places of non-makings are discursive consequences of political hegemony and when these arts are made, they distort the hegemonic ordering of the place. The intervention is made possible by the iconicity of ‘Banksy’, which through its discursive power creates a discursive break in the graffiti- and street art discourse in Stockholm. It is of critical importance to note that these creations are not made by anyone from anywhere. Nor are they creations that progressively create new trajectories and political becomings. Instead, they are creative interventions that create a space of, first and foremost, paradoxes. According to Nikos Papastergiadis, it is from this paradoxical location that art can achieve emancipatory functions, alienated from hegemonic structures and in the flux of everyday life (Papastergiadis, 2012).

According to Papastergiadis the culture of cosmopolitanism “lives within the aesthetic domain of transnational networks and on local streets” (Papastergiadis, 2012, p. 89). In this view cosmopolitanism always regards imagining an image of the world, an enterprise that potentially can be enabled by artistic performances and the spaces and imaginaries created in these performances. Papastergiadis further argues that “[p]lace and the everyday need to be understood as being constitutive in the production of contemporary art” (Papastergiadis, 2012, p. 15). Street art is very much an everyday form of art. It can be seen almost everywhere in an urban area and people see it every day. Similarly Michel de Certeau (1984) points to the intersection of space and everyday life and how identities are constituted through everyday practices. The performances of the street art cluster are thus part of the production of urban space, which conversely becomes tied to the creation of the artistic cluster of street artists. Performance and space presuppose one another.

As an event of multiple collapsing trajectories and as constituting new relations between daily and political life, #banksyinstockholm can be thought of in terms of translation. #banksyinstockholm becomes an event that creates a space of translations and also paradoxes. It is paradoxical because it brings several spaces together and thereby shows the non-fixed character of space and place and how these are subject to constant negotiation. The paradoxical space is a space of translation of (sometimes) conflicting narratives which all collapse in the place. According to Gerard Delanty (2009) cultural translation is central for understanding the contemporary condition of transformation. It is in the encounter with otherness that the cosmopolitan possibility opens up for seeing the self from a different point of view. This is also a part of what Delanty calls the cosmopolitan condition – living in translation. Delanty further states that thinking “beyond the established forms of borders is an essential dimension of the cosmopolitan imagination” (ibid., p. 7). Papastergiadis also explores the possibilities of a cosmopolitan imaginary on the basis of cultural translation as well as hybridity. According to Papastergiadis hybridity can be used to conceptualize processes of cultural transformation (and translation), which are noticeable at three levels; effects, processes and critical consciousness (Papastergiadis, 2012, p. 117). The first level concerns the process of incorporation of foreign elements into (a local) identity. The second level concerns the process where the foreign culture is incorporated, neutralized or ‘naturalized’ in the (local) cultural body. The third level is connected to artistic practice and concerns the critical engagement with attachments and openness towards the unfamiliar. The third level is, according to Papastergiadis, crucial for (re)thinking and understanding cultural belonging, transformation and artistic practice (ibid.).

It is important to note that the process of translation is not a process where something unknown or different encounters and is translated into something known. Both that which is unknown and that which is known is at stake and is renegotiated, which creates the in-between space of translation. The encounter, the event of translation and the moment of (re)negotiation should therefore not be understood in terms of a center-periphery dialogue with an end. Rather this is an event of multiple in-between communications and trajectories creating more of a ‘multilogue’. The multilogue is not only a communicative event characterized by the multiplicity of coinciding trajectories, nor has the multilogue an evident direction. Rather, the creations of, and conditions for, multilogue are paradoxical, unanticipated and have no anticipations for specific or pre-destined results. These small and particular moments of transition occur in everyday practice and bear the potential of creating a cosmopolitan space. Creating a cosmopolitan space of hospitality and curiosity is however not always easy. The differential character of the urban condition also comes with a challenge – to confront, acknowledge and accept difference. Supporting and promoting street art in Stockholm is to do something different. It is making and unfolding difference. These makings are what I now shall move on to unpack further.

 

The becoming of the event

The subjects, and the event are in this paper discussed in terms of becoming. According to Gilles Deleuze, there is no being or transcendent reality beyond becoming and becoming is always connected to difference and multiplicity (May, 2003). Accordingly becoming is used to emphasize the spatiotemporal dimension of these subjects. Subjects and places are spatiotemporal snapshots of change and movement within an assemblage.

This event mainly revolves around the sign “Banksy”, which is the most central and privileged sign. It is however also the most contested sign of all and thereby a floating signifier. The articulation of “Banksy” is very much under constant negotiation and an unresolved question. There are mainly two conceptions of ‘Banksy’ that appear in the material. On the one hand ‘Banksy’ is conceptualized as an icon but is, on the other hand, understood as a commercialized “sell-out”. These two conflicting constructions of ‘Banksy’ are as connected to two other subjectivities – The Hipster and The Doubters.

 

The Hipster

The Hipster is a discursive node and is the subject that becomes in contrast to the Doubter. The Doubter is the subject that mainly constructs the Hipster in its critique and although a few oppose the critique of the Doubter there is no discursive struggle concerning what it means to be a Hipster. The Hipster is the subject buying in to the event. The Hipster is present at the location, takes part, follows the man blowing the whistle and is a believer. The believing and even hoping that ‘Banksy’ had been there or would appear in some unknown way is mainly what the Hipster is for. The Hipster is also the one taking the art installations because of, according to the Hipster-critics, their potential economic value. A post on Flashback said:

A bunch of [Söder]⁶ hipsters who are copies of themselves mixed with people from [Vasastan]⁷ with ‘swag’. The only positive thing that could come from this exhibition would be if all these twats got their glasses smashed when people tried to jack the shit (3rd3y3, F#82).

Another one stated:

Haha, all these hipsters carrying ‘Banksys’ art away. I hope it is real for your sake, so you’ll become millionaires. Because you’re worth it (Hejz, F#75).

The Hipster here partially becomes through equalizing people with “swag”, twats and people with glasses. This subject is mainly understood as a kind of economic predator who lack the ability to judge whether an artwork is real or not and, importantly, as someone who is not really interested in the art but more in potential economic gains of the artworks. The ones taking the art installations also stated that the potential economic value was a motive for them taking the installations. One installation was composed by a huge Gucci-bag on top of a mannequin, which the bag appeared to have crushed beneath itself.

 

 

The bag was taken after a while and the two young men who took the Gucci bag said that:

If it’s a real Banksy it could be worth 30 000.⁸ We’re splitting the money (Söderin, 24 March 2014)

Another tweet on the same installation stated:

[] the Gucci bag symbolizes our consumption society, we’re getting crushed by it! Geniouuuuuuuus!!!!!!!! (@Virre, Twitter, 23 March 2014)

The kind of excited language is, generally speaking, not so common in the data. Most of the texts are mocking these kinds of positive attitudes, which are perceived as somewhat naïve and uncritical, although some of the critics declare, “it was exciting” (@panuluukka, Twitter, 23 March 2014).

A headline in one of the news articles stated that “The Visitors Stole the Show” (Paterson, 24 March 2014) which partially points to how visitors took the installations from the exhibition hall, but it is also important to note how the headline also signifies that the visitors became creators of the event. They were not passive spectators but instead active creators of the urban event, simultaneously on the Internet and on-site.

The critique and ridiculing of the Hipster thus partially have to do with the perceived absurdity of thinking that ‘Banksy’ actually would appear or that ‘Banksy’ actually would be the maker of the art installations. The critique is also a societal critique against capitalism, appropriations of art forms and the commercialization of art. The Hipster becomes the subject that consumes the art and tries to make money from it. This also becomes the opposite of seeing, experiencing and judging art for the sake of its aesthetic value which in this discourse means judging art and not taking the maker of the art into that judgment. The critique against the Hipster entails the notion that the Hipster lacks genuine interest in the art makings, the interest in the exhibition is merely an interest in ‘Banksy’ and the possible economic and symbolic gains that could come from having attended a “real” ‘Banksy’ exhibition. “His signature has become more important than what he does”, (Informant #2) one informant said in an interview.

In another art discourse, it could be argued that judging or experiencing art is never disconnected from the makers of it but the case of street art is somewhat different. The makers of these arts are seldom known to anyone than others in the relatively small network of those who produce art in the street. There are of course those who are also active within the mainstream art world and exhibit at art galleries whose identities are known, but when active on the streets, artists go under aliases, which are not known to the average (non-‘insider’) citizen walking the same streets. Not knowing the maker of an artwork is therefore intertwined with judging and experiencing street art appearing in the street. Not only is there a connection between judging street art without considering the maker, it is also made into a value within the street art world as the way it should be. Mocking the Hipster is thus made possible through its perceived disconnection to, or a lack of insight in, the street art world. Not only is the Hipster not getting that ‘Banksy’ will not make an appearance, but the Hipster does not even understand that this is not how street art is to be judged or experienced according to the Doubters. I distinguish between two kinds of doubters connected to the event: The Knower-Better and The Interested Doubter.

 

The Doubter I – The Knower-Better

The Knower-Better is far more critical than the Interested Doubter and is the subject particularly prone to constructing the Hipster in their critique. The Knower-Better is rather blasé, sighs at the whole thing and dislikes Hipsters. Most of the Knower-Betters keep their distance by not attending the exhibition, but others are at the site commenting on the other visitors, mainly the ones identified as Hipsters.

The comments are made to create a distance and separation to the event (and the Hipster). The Knower-Better brings the discussion on what the artwork is to the fore. In tweets and articles, the event is for example labeled an “enactment of the Pied Piper of Hamelin” (Söderin, 24 March 2014; @_wiman, Twitter, 23 March 2014). Several tweets alluded to the same theme and claimed that “If you’re not getting it you who pilgrim to the ‘Banksy’ thing are the artwork” (@williamdeyoung, Twitter, 23 March 2014). Naming the event an enactment of The Pied Piper of Hamelin is also articulating a critique against cultural conformity, which becomes evident on Flashback:

Feeling awkward by the whole thing. Swedish culture vultures are conformists and like sheep, which became rather evident today. All these unique snowflakes – no one thinking for themselves (Evropa, F#55)

The critique on commercialism and capitalism is prominent when it comes to the Knower-Better, who also ascribes these phenomena to the Hipster. For the Knower-Better it is important, not only to clarify that they know or expect this not to be ‘Banksy’, but also to distance themselves from taking part in a commercialized “spectacle” (‏@therbertneuwirth, Twitter, 25 March 2014; see also Jani, Leurs & Sumiala in this special issue). On Flashback one person asked:

Anyone saw anything from “Banksy” at/around Hudiksvallsgatan this afternoon? Or is the bid one should go back to bed? Would get pissed off if I lumber down there and some f-king PR firm is doing like beer- or coffee advertisements (garion100, F#65)

On Twitter someone in a similar vain said:

Worst case scenario this is the launch of a new clothing line (@AndersKarnell, Twitter, 23 March 2014).

The Knower-Better was not only criticizing the Hipsters but also ‘Banksy’ to some extent. “Banksy” is articulated as “overrated” (DRD4, F#79) and inside the exhibition hall someone spray-painted “Fuck Banksy” on a wall (@Loukas_RS, Twitter, March 23).

 

 

There is also a critique that raises a discussion on the relationship between street art and graffiti, where street art becomes the less authentic, more commercialized and, to the masses, accessible art form.

Good street art can be the right image in the right place but good graffiti takes years of practice and tons of paranoia-sweat (Istidraj, F#74).

The Knower-Better becomes in this aversion against the event, an aversion that is embodied and created by an equivalence chain that collapses: street art – “Banksy” – the Hipster, into each other. Street art signifies commercialized art, ‘Banksy’ the producer of these arts, and the Hipster is the buyer and appropriator of the arts. What signifies the Knower-Better is consequently first and foremost the aversion against commercialized and appropriated art. Several of the Knower-Betters are also appreciative of the exhibition and admit that the event is important as an intervention against the zero tolerance policy in Stockholm that was still in place during the exhibition. These arguments are however mainly presented when someone contends their tone of voice or pessimism. Instead, there is another kind of Doubter, one who mainly presents arguments in favor of the exhibition. These are articulations that create the Interested Doubter.

 

The Doubter II – The Interested Doubter

The Interested Doubter is less nonchalant than the Knower-Better and takes part in the event to see what will happen. The Interested Doubter is not explicitly critical to the Hipster and is therefore not created in contrast to the Hipster. The Interested Doubter has a more investigative and casual approach to the event. The Interested Doubter considers the event interesting as a kind of social experiment or art experience but they “really do not count on that ‘Banksy’ will exhibit” (Kirenstilen, F#36). The Interested Doubter makes it clear that attending the event is due to a genuine interest in art and specifically street art in this case. Thereby the Interested Doubter comes off as a rather credible and serious subject. This as the Interested Doubter understands that street art should be experienced and judged ‘independently’ from knowledge of the identity of the art makers.

This point was also brought up in a manifesto written by the makers of the exhibition and nailed to a wall inside of the exhibition hall. The title of the manifesto was “Anonymous Celebrity” and brought the question of authenticity to the fore through pointing to the uniqueness of the ‘Banksy’ phenomenon as a paradoxical combination of anonymity and fame. It stated that one of the most interesting aspect of Banksy’s works is when the artist “plays with authenticity and subverts expectations” (N.N., 2014). If anything this event played with the meaning of artistic authenticity and people’s expectations, which was sparked by the visitor’s curiosities. In contrast to the articulations of the Knower-Better, the manifesto, as well as the Interested Doubter, point to the interesting aspects of subverting authenticity and also claim that artistic value becomes as a consequence thereof.  

Characteristic for the Interested Doubter is also that this Doubter raises other interconnected themes when discussing the event. Such themes regard the political implications of the event in zero tolerance Stockholm and what the artwork is meant to be or say. A previous quote pointed to the political potential of the artwork when speculating whether the city would “obey” the zero tolerance policy were the artworks to be proven as ‘authentic’. “What is artistic freedom?” a tweet asked for example (@matsthepoet, Twitter, 23 March 2014) and another asked: “what is art” (@somaralnaher, Twitter, 23 March 2014). These tweets are also occasionally sarcastic, but there is still appreciation for the event as: an artistic and political intervention; the potential political consequences of the event; and the experience as a whole. The Interested Doubter “understands” what is happening and employs a positive but critical look at the event.

This is how I perceive the essence of the artwork/hashtag/mediated event #banksyinstockholm: a call for critical thinking. I like. (@johanwirfalt, Twitter, 23 March 2014).

In other words the Interested Doubter takes a reflective stance and can be characterized as an embodiment of what Rosi Braidotti describes as nomadism - a “critical consciousness that resists settling into socially coded modes of thought and behavior” (Braidotti, 2011, p. 26). The Interested Doubter raises analytical and critical questions and is interested in the political and aesthetic implications of the event. Nodes for the discourse of the Interested Doubters are consequently the signs art and politics. For the Interested Doubter, it is important to analyze the event and these analyzes are made from a point of distanced presence. Several are on-site but create a distance between themselves and the event through assuming a critical eye. Applying this critical consciousness, distanced presence and also calling for others to reflect upon the political implications is thus what signifies the Interested Doubter.

 

The becoming of ‘Banksy’

The becoming of ‘Banksy’ conveys four important dimensions of becoming and making of place: ‘Banksy’ is becoming through different modes of presence and thereby becomes a manifestation of the materialization of several modes of simultaneous presences and becomings; secondly it demonstrates how closeness materializes in different ways; thirdly that performing subjects are present and embodied in different ways; and fourth, it is an example of how place becomes through different kinds of presences.

The simultaneous and different modes of presences becomes through the diverse and contradictory articulations of ‘Banksy’. Further, it is also unclear what the sign ‘Banksy’ signifies. On the one hand the signified is an anonymous person and artist but, on the other hand, the signified is (sometimes commercialized) street art, intervening art and right to public space. This makes, as already noted, “Banksy” a floating signifier, a signifier without any specific signified. ‘Banksy’ is present as a ‘concept’ and as a discursive node which enables the event and the participations in the event in what could be considered as a ‘meta discourse’, the overarching #banksyinstockholm event. This presence is characterized by incongruity due to the conflicting intra-discursive articulations of ‘Banksy’.

These conflicting articulations and uncertain significations of “Banksy” are very much connected to the myth and the mystery revolving ‘Banksy’. There are no pictures of the artist and basically no one knows who ‘Banksy’ is.

In conjunction to the making of the movie “Exit through the Gift Shop” (2010, Revolver Entertainment), an Oscar-nominated documentary/mockumentary allegedly directed by ‘Banksy’; there were speculations on whether ‘Banksy’ could have acted as the main character of the do-/mockumentary, Thierry Guetta. The movie is about an amateur moviemaker, Guetta, who starts to follow street artists and also crosses paths with ‘Banksy’. The artists who are being filmed are under the impression that the material will be compiled into a documentary, but Guetta never makes one. When finally forced into showing the material ‘Banksy’ says (in the film) that he realized that Guetta probably was not a filmmaker, rather “just somebody with mental problems who happened to have a camera” (Exit Through the Gift Shop). Then Guetta becomes a street artist himself with the alias Mr. Brainwash. The exhibition of the art attracts thousands of visitors and is sold for almost a million USD. On Flashback one of the posts asked whether #banksyinstockholm was another version of “Exit through the Gift Shop”, i.e. the making of an artist and a sellable concept and continued by stating that ‘Banksy’ is “just about as cool as Thierry Guetta” (Regel2.01, F#60).

Which artist being made at #banksyinstockholm is therefore a question with multiple answers. ‘Banksy’ as an iconic subject is part of the answer, but the event and the performance are more complex than that. ‘Banksy’ as articulated subject enables a discursive break, constituting ‘Banksy’ as a political subject in that process. ‘Banksy’ becomes the political representative for street art in general and, interestingly enough, for Stockholm in particular, although there was no established connection between ‘Banksy’ and Stockholm.

Chantal Mouffe argues that there “is an aesthetic dimension in the political and there is a political dimension in art” (Mouffe, 2007, p. 4). This is a consequence of the consideration of the theory of hegemony and can be related to Claude Lefort’s idea of the public space as a product of an ongoing discursive struggle (Lefort, 1986) Hence, the discursive construction of the public space obscures the public and/or the urban as multiple and antagonistic. According to Mouffe, all art is political in the sense that it either maintains or challenges (or both) a given symbolic and discursive order (ibid.). In order to grasp the political dimension of critical art Mouffe therefore proposes that “we need to see them as counter-hegemonic interventions whose objective is to occupy the public space in order to disrupt the smooth image that corporate capitalism is trying to spread, bringing to the fore its repressive character” (ibid.). Understood as capitalist critique the #banksyinstockholm becomes such a critical intervention of art. Stockholm city has not been entertaining the idea that street art would be tolerable although graffiti is a far more controversial form of unsanctioned urban art than the kind of street art exhibited at #banksyinstockholm. The art form has an ambivalent position and thereby it constitutes the political. The head of the Swedish Arts Council, a government authority whose principal task is to implement national cultural policy, was also present at the event and said it “was fun to be there” (@Kulturnyheterna, Twitter, 23 March 2014). This also expresses the in-betweenness and paradoxicality of the event. These paradoxes become manifestations of the antagonistic character of the urban space and the reductive and excluding force of the discursive construct of the public space.

The second dimension regards how closeness materializes in different ways. Whether a body identified as ‘Banksy’ was at the site and/or had created the exhibition or not was not a prerequisite for sensing the presence of the artist. Despite ‘Banksy’s’ unconfirmed physical presence, the artist’s presence was still evident at the event and also enhanced by the political environment in the specific locality. The iconicity of ‘Banksy’ brings the tension between street art and politics in Stockholm to its peak. ‘Banksy’ becomes as a political artist, or an artistic politician, without any known involvement, established intent stemming from a person or “Banksy himself”, and even without any physical presence. Thus the symbolic subject can be understood as quite disconnected from a physical body or person. ‘Banksy’ has become larger than himself and “he can’t control it, himself anymore” (Informant #1) an informant said in an interview. “It” (‘Banksy’) becomes a temporal phenomenon in different places and dimensions of presence. This leads us to the third dimension of the becoming of ‘Banksy’ – how performing subjects are present and embodied in different ways.

‘Banksy’ is not only made present in the ‘shared imaginary’ of the participants, but also in the artwork, regardless of who made it, as well as in the performances of the participants of the event, who co-create the event simultaneously on the Internet and on-site. Thereby the subject ‘Banksy’ becomes through the participants and the multimodal performances creating the event. ‘Banksy’ became an embodied presence through the performances of 8000 people.

 Everybody’s “Banksy”? (‏@deeped, Twitter, 23 March 2014).

A post on Flashback posted prior to the event said:

[A]ccording to a friend of mine ‘fake Banksies’ have started appearing on the street. [P]eople are taking matters into their own hands (dancedancedance, F#42).

Not only did ‘Banksy’ become a multiple subject, the artwork did too, which leads to the fourth dimension – how place becomes through different kinds of presences. At the exhibition, people did take matters into their own hands and started to tear walls down, paint the walls and take the installations. Through the performances of everyone taking matters into their own hands, the artwork and the place were becoming. A city is made in the everyday performances of the people who live or pass through it. Most performances are repetitions, discursive sedimentations, but some deviate from hegemonic patterns and expectations of city life and experience. These are the performances that bring the paradoxes of contemporary urban condition to the fore. The urban space has always been subject to contradictions and exposed to difference and globalization has increased the momentum of these processes. As in the #banksyinstockholm case, this happens through multimodal interpersonal and mediated communications, but #banksyinstockholm also shows how these multimodal place-makings make the urban as a kind of hyper-place that is as tangible as evanescent.

Although the on-site and the Internet participations created this hyper-everyday none of this would, however, have been possible without the mythical aura surrounding ‘Banksy’. The iconicity of ‘Banksy’ together with the contradictions and paradoxicality regarding the artist’s presence was vital for the event to play out. While the questions asked by those who participated in the event regarded whether ‘Banksy’ was there or not, it is also important to note that not really knowing was perhaps more desirable.

If I had left the exhibition and known for sure if Banksy was involved or not I probably would have been damned disappointed (pelotard, #97).

Further, it is important for the becoming of not only ‘Banksy’, but also street artists in general. The spatial footprints of these artists are everywhere, but the artists are nowhere. In the case of ‘Banksy’, the importance and desirability of the myth becomes even more powerful. The desire to know the identity of the artist is just as important as the desirable mythical dream of not knowing. As long as all the multiple possibilities of becoming have not yet collapsed into one, the multiple possibilities enable each participant to create the event as meaningful in relation to their own becomings.

The question of whether or not ‘Banksy’ was present is thus a simple question with complex and multiple answers. This question was nevertheless what the whole event revolved around. What everyone wanted to know was whether the event and the exhibition were authentic, and to some it was the hope that it would be that made them show up and create the event. Whether the event was authentic or not is, however, a question about the place, the event and the performance and not a question concerning if a specific artist had created the exhibition or nor. Rather the event became authentic and ‘real’ as a collective and collaborative performance.

I’m feeling as authentic as “Banksy” does himself (@LenaNestius, Twitter, 23 March 2014).

Again the question of authenticity comes into play and is either articulated in a blasé way or as an artistic quality as pointed to in the manifesto. This play with authenticity, curiosity and anonymity was central to the becoming of the event. Not knowing and not getting any certain answers was desirable for the people participating. The participators desired living in curiosity and a state of exploration trying to find out an impossible answer to a question no one seemed to know. The manifesto concluded by asking:

If you’re still wondering whether this is a work of “Banksy” or not, perhaps the next question should be, is that the most important question? (@RouleauDeFilm, Twitter, 23 March 2014).

So what is the most important question?

 

Asking the Ultimate Question

Identifying the ultimate question is clearly a matter of qualified guessing. I have two qualified guesses, qualified since they are derived from the material. The first of these guesses has been hinted on already and is the guess made by most participators. This guess proposes that the event is a critical comment on the status of street art/graffiti in Stockholm and the zero tolerance policy that was in place at the moment. The exhibition could be thought of as a political action and an encouragement towards others to, as the press release stated, “make intrusions themselves”. The visitors were invited and, therefore, allowed and encouraged to make intrusions. At another place in (Stockholm) time and space, they might not have received such an invitation.

One of the installations had a reference to Douglas Adams’ “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” (Adams, 1997). It said “You can’t lie in front of the bulldozer forever”.

 

 

In the book the answer to the ultimate question (of Life, Universe and Everything) is 42. This makes no sense of course (which also annoys Arthur Dent, the main character in the book). Were anyone to have answered the question of whether ‘Banksy’ was there or not saying “42” this would make just as little sense, but why is that? In the case of “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” the reader is made aware that if someone does not understand an answer to a question, that does not mean that there is something wrong with the answer, it might just as well be something wrong with the question. In the case of #banksyinstockholm, the question whether ‘Banksy’ was here or not is impossible because it becomes a question without end. It is an impossible question. It cannot be answered because the question does not encompass the complexity of the answer. Conversely, an answer of yes or no simply does not grasp the complexity of the simultaneous and multiple becomings at this moment in time and space. So what would the most important question that the writers of the manifesto wanted people to ask themselves? This brings me to my second guess, which would be: why is it important to know whether ‘Banksy’ was there or not?

This question is derived from the critique raised by the Knower-Betters, and to some extent the Interested Doubters, who question the fixation and fetishizing of ‘Banksy’. The question on whether ‘Banksy’ was there or not or if the art installations were “authentic” as made by ‘Banksy’ only makes sense if ‘Banksy’ is made into a reason, an aim and an object of desire – a fetish. The initiators of this event question this fetishizing logic of fame. Banksy is perhaps the only celebrity that remains anonymous. In a society that bulges of desires for 15 minutes of fame, being part of the next meme, or the next trending topic on Twitter this is, not to say the least, rare. This celebrity logic and celebration was consequently subverted and counteracted through the event. 

On yet another level, the question whether ‘Banksy’ was there or not still is the most important question. Not because the answer is significant, but because this question was the spark of the urban improvisation. This question made the whole thing happen. The question enabled the event, the place and the artistic and spatial becomings. Were no one to have been curious about finding an answer to that question, no one would have come. Hence, no one would have asked themselves any questions at all and no one would have asked themselves what kind of questions they would want to ask themselves. The curiosity of finding an answer to that question is the spark of the event. It is what made the event into a moment of urban improvisations and improvisational imaginaries. Graffiti as a hybrid, de-institutionalized, ephemeral and transcultural medium has the potential of constituting new relations between daily and political life (García Canclini, 1995). It is a curiosity that result in these relations being (re)negotiated and (re)imagined.

 

Closing remarks

When the rumor that ‘Banksy’ would hold an exhibition in Stockholm reached Swedish media speculations and expectations were not long in coming. This article has explored the political, artistic and spatial potentialities and paradoxes of the #banksyinstockholm event through discursive articulations on Twitter and the online forum Flashback. The #banksyinstockholm event is a peculiar and in several ways also unique moment that has been discussed in terms of a cosmopolitan space of translation, multilogue, paradoxes and simultaneous presences. The paradoxicality of the event is even more amplified by this multidimensionality, which also adds to the complexity of the event. These complexities unfold in the paradoxical space that opens up possibilities for other curious and hospitable imaginings of the urban. This is what signifies these spatial and artistic becomings. It is paradoxical and plural to its (never existing) essence because of the throwntogetherness of antagonistic trajectories, a spatial creation because it invites makings of spatial ruptures and subjects become present yet un-present. They are in-between presences, embodying the paradoxes and complexities of the contemporary urban condition.

Artistic interventions take place everyday in the city in aesthetic forms very similar to the art exhibited at #banksyinstockholm. These everyday creations are usually of the anonymous kind though, the kind that lacks the attraction of a celebrity and the performative power of a famous name. It is nevertheless important to note that they do appear and thereby influence the urban experience. Further it should be noted that the makers of the exhibition asked why ‘Banksy’s’ presence was so important to the participators, which should be considered as a call for detaching the aesthetic experience from whoever made the artwork.

Yet it is ‘Banksy’ and the performative power of ‘Banksy’ that enabled #banksyinstockholm and its performative improvisations. Due to the contradictions in the articulations of ‘Banksy’ the event became a paradox, which was a consequence of ‘Banksy’ becoming a floating signifier. In the discourse of the Knower-Betters ‘Banksy’ is articulated as a commercialized sell-out. The Interested Doubters acknowledge ‘Banksy’ as an artist, but questions any involvement from that specific artist, and the Hipster either thinks ‘Banksy’ is “king” and/or wants to make money off the art. All of these different articulations and discursive nodes raise important questions. With regard to the Knower-Betters who center their discussion and critique against commercialism, it is important to ask what it means when unsanctioned urban arts become a commodity. Considering graffiti stems from a subculture in New York made out of mainly working class people, it is impossible to not consider such appropriations as a ‘bourgeoisie’ appropriating working class art. From the Interested Doubter’s point of view, it was important to question zero tolerance and artistic (un)freedom, issues that tap into questions regarding access to public space and who has the right to the city. The reason #banksyinstockholm became possible was that this aesthetic has become more accepted, it is sold at art galleries (is a commodity) and had a big name to back it up. That means that access to public space and the right to the city clearly has to do with the degree of deviation from the norm, a norm that has to do with aesthetic ideals and economic potency.

This art space did all the same provide a potential meeting place for these contradictions and paradoxes and a temporal strategy for, and creation of, new alliances and a space for cultural translation, negotiation and hospitality, all of which were created by the makers of the exhibition, the participants and the city. The space of the event became through the throwing together of simultaneous and different modes of presences and a diverse collection of trajectories making a place of cultural displacement and translation. The event became a (re)negotiating event due to its intervening character and the political potentialities that bleed out from these processes of political and spatial (re)negotiation. The event held the possibility of cultural translation and hospitality and the potential of taking unexpected turns.

The number of possibilities could be considered as limited, considering a rather homogenous crowd not having to face anything but sameness. This would, nevertheless, be an oversimplification. As pointed out repeatedly, street art is an ephemeral, illegal and hence intervening urban art. Further, it should also be noted that sameness is created by shared curiosity. This does not mean that all the participating people were the same. It means that sameness emerged in a moment of coinciding desires and curiosities sparked by an aesthetic urban intervention.

These interventions were also, as mentioned, encouraged in the press releases, a very provocative encouragement in Stockholm. However, the city never made an effort to stop the event. Instead city representatives attended the event.

When analyzing the reviews of the movie Jaws, Fredric Jameson (1979) notes that most tend to focus on the shark as the problem and what kinds of anxieties the shark represents. All these different articulations of what the shark represents give the shark polysemous function, which then absorbs the multiple meanings given to the shark (1979, p. 142). In other words, the shark becomes a sign that absorbs meaning due to its polysemousness. Jameson continues to argue that the polysemousness is highly ideological as societal anxieties get disguised as natural. The conflict consequently looks like a ‘natural’ one between man and nature (ibid.). In the case of #banksyinstockholm, ‘Banksy’ is the shark. ‘Banksy’ is the floating signifier that through its polysemousness absorbs possible representations of the event. The event was an intervention but lost part of its political edge because of the polysemousness. The city never had to stop the event because the political potentialities were dismantled through the paradox of having an unsanctioned street art exhibition under the name of an established and celebrated street artist, in zero tolerance Stockholm that was attended by city representatives who usually are against these kinds of arts. Why did/could they attend the event? Because the fluidity of the most central sign made the event appear harmless. This shows the impossibility, and also the oxymoron, of having all political possibilities coming into play and still make a forceful political claim. The more representations of a central sign, the less political potency the sign has. It is also the case that even though an (art)space is inviting to many possibilities, the possibilities are reduced by the fact that not all enter.

 

 

The ones that did enter this art space did nonetheless become artistic and spatial collaborators. They collaborated in making the event, art and in embodying ‘Banksy’, who therefore both multiplied and disappeared. The initiators provided a possibility, which evolved rhizomatically. #banksyinstockholm transformed a striated city space into a smooth space for a moment in time, in an encounter, at an event, in a place. The event became possible at a moment when different coinciding desires created an alternative and subversive urban space through simultaneous virtual and on-site presences. Through the activities on Twitter and Flashback, those who were not on-site were able to participate as spatial and political collaborators of the becoming city space. Although #banksyinstockholm was in many ways a unique urban event; this is how people create cities every day. Creating the city is a multimodal activity. People create cities through walking in it, tweeting it, talking it, deciding it, Instagramming it – and painting it. It is in the simultaneity of these multimodal activities that the city is becoming and it is this simultaneity that designates the contemporary urban condition.

Street art and graffiti has become accessible to a broader audience through this simultaneity. It does no longer exist only for the people who know where to look, what to look for or have time to see before ephemerality gets the best of the arts. Instagram for example becomes an archive that changes the rules. Such platforms reach further than the ‘analogue’ city wall does. The streets on which street arts are made and experienced have elongated and even visibility of individual artists has increased in cases where artists themselves post using identifiable names and accounts. In that respect platforms such as Instagram fill a PR function. ‘Banksy’ has 626 000 followers on Instagram (https://instagram.com/banksy/, 24-11-2015). For an anonymous person, the artist is very visible. ‘Banksy’ appears to be everywhere but still nowhere. So who is ‘Banksy’? ‘Banksy’ is the shark and the question that is answered by “42”. As noted in the manifesto inside the exhibition hall - “The only thing that is certain is that this is the place”.

 

 

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Acknowledgements

Tindra Thor is part of the project Cosmopolitanism from the Margins – Mediations of Alternate Expressivity and financed by The Swedish Research Council.

 

NOTES

¹ ‘White' in terms of cultural citizenship.

² The consequences of the disappearance of zero tolerance are however still unclear. During zero tolerance, not even legal graffiti appeared in the streets. After the policy’s disappearance, there have however been instances of legal graffiti projects in the city. Such a project was made in Slussen, an area in central Stockholm. Slussen has caused great controversies and debates between those who point to the need for restoration and those who advocate preserving the place. (Säll, 2015) At the center of Slussen, there is a circular building, which is a landmark for this place, and in the summer of 2015 the building was graffiti painted. Although the project raised protests (Heidl, 2015), the idea that the city would support such a project was unthinkable under zero tolerance. Visual expressions labeled ‘klotter’ (usually tags and throws) are still sanitized.

³ See for example Dickens (2008a).

⁴ For example on November 14, 2015 the Facebook page StreetArtGlobe has 3.6 million followers (https://www.facebook.com/streetartglobe?fref=ts.

⁵ www.flashback.org, 20 August 2015.

⁶ The southern part of Stockholm city often associated with ”hipster” audience, i.e. the Soho of Stockholm.

⁷ The part of Stockholm city where the exhibition took place. This part of the city is less associated with specifically ”hipsters”, but more so with the generic population of high economic and symbolic capital.

⁸ Swedish crowns