GAYFITTI
As a gay man myself who has first hand been unjustly objected to de facto and de jure homophobia, I sought to do a project confronting this deeply rooted form of bigotry. The LGBTQ+ community has alarmingly high rates of suicide, been victimized by past administrations through their intentional neglect of the AIDS epidemic, denied basic human rights, been bullied, beaten, and murdered by hate groups throughout the United States and be- yond. Challenging any such institution whose foundational values are heteropatriarchal is not only looked down upon by the status quo, but can even be dangerous and have legally severe consequences.
Punitive measures for forms of graffiti such as wheatpasting or tagging intimidate potential “perpetrators” in an effort to silence a specific set of people with “unfavorable” opinions. In an effort to circumvent the legal ramifica- tions of vandalism, I created gay confetti graffiti and call it “Gayfitti.”
I wrote phrases such as “I’m Gay,” “Guess What?” “You’re Gay,” “Still Gay,” “Woke, Broke, and Gay,” etc. on double sided, small, colorful pieces of paper. I used a risograph and an industrial mechanized cutting machine to efficiently and cost effectively print thousands of these cute little gay pieces of paper.
Rather than using spray paint to mark a building or having to skiddishly wheatpaste a poster onto a construction site, Gayfitti can simply be thrown into the air. The wind then blows the Gayfitti around, and distributes our mes- sage among city streets. In theory, if caught by the police, participants at worst may incur minimal legal ramifi- cations such as a fine for littering, a much less severe punishment than for tagging or wheatpasting. Gayfitti does not destroy property.
Gayfitti is potentially a highly effective, attractive form of resistance because it is cheap to produce and can be disseminated quickly and abundantly. A single individual can litter thousands of these within minutes, so imagine the exponential capabilities of larger groups. Further, Gayfitti can be adapted to other causes such as Black Lives Matter or Women’s Rights issues with a simple change of words. Gayfitti introduces an unbiased platform for self expression.
What else offers an unbiased platform of self expression that is accessible to many and capable of dispersing information within seconds? The Internet.
Gayfitti is not only a form of digital art in the sense that it hits on digital art thematics such as visual pollution, activism, and information, but is also a metaphor for the Internet in and of itself.
