Before there were graffiti artists, there were civil engineers. At least that’s a theory of mine. For years now, Toronto has been in the grips of a construction boom and, before anybody breaks ground, teams of surveyors and engineers spray paint lines all over the pavement. The streets become canvasses for a kind of urban development graffiti.
Even if my theory is completely wrong, I can’t help but note similarities between graffiti and these markings. Both are incomprehensible to ordinary people like you and me. They are specialized discourses aimed at insiders initiated in their secret meanings.
In a section titled “Phenomenology Of Initiation,” religious anthropologist, Mircea Eliade, writes:
In addition to specific operations–such as circumcision and subincision–and to initiatory mutilations, other external signs, such as tattooing or scarring indicate death and resurrection. As for the symbolism of mystical rebirth, it appears in many forms. Candidates are given new names, which will be their true names thenceforth. … Usually they learn a new language in the bush, or at least a secret vocabulary, kept from all but the initiate.
Maybe graffiti artists and engineers have to undergo rituals of initiation too. As boys, the candidates go under bridges where they live for a week without food and water. They have mystical visions, then walk out as men. In secret, the shaman reveals to each candidate his own tag, hands him a can of spray paint, and tells him to go to it.
I personally have never been witness to such an initiation, but the fruits of those rituals can be seen everywhere.
