(Photo: Jonathan Maus)
On my way to the Tour de Fat on Saturday morning, I noticed this stencil painted on the Steel Bridge. The artist used white paint for the machine-gun/bike symbol, included the words “Fight Back” and put it up it several times toward the west end of the bike/ped path.
I’m not sure if it’s a direct response to Friday’s incident, but the paint looked fresh and I don’t recall seeing it before then.
It has sparked some interesting discussion on the Shift Email List.
Here are a few of them:
“It’s certainly a powerful symbol, but I don’t want my bike to be a weapon of revolution, I want it to be a vehicle of change.”
“The image is graphically strong but the message is just wrong. Firepower is like oil power, not a good fit with bike power.”
“i do like it. who says that everything has to be peace and love to convey messages and political statements?…. we’ve all got the same general goals, some people go the Martin Luther King route, some go the Malcolm X route.”
I tend to go the Martin Luther King route.
What do you think?
Thanks for reading.
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We\’re better than violence.
We\’re better than vandalism.
Or so I thought.
freaking politico posers. one more reason for drivers to hate us.
Its called urban graffiti, why does everything in this city have to turn into a political discussion.
We don\’t need that.
A car, or a gun. They empower ignorance.
Bikes are better BECAUSE they are vulnerable. They are community.
How many conversations have you struck up with other drivers when you are driving?
ya, all I thought when I saw it was…great, more graffiti tags around PDX…
the distinction is just not there..and really conjures up this image of \”anarchist bike riders\”…which in itself is pretty much silly.
This will be an interesting thread to watch, especially if you remember the comments about the armed revolutionary cyclist poster that was discussed a few months back.
This type of thinking and the vandalous activity it spurs exists along a continuum, though. In light of this, I guess I now think it\’s not so funny that someone was asking for advice in the forums about how best to bike-mount a collapsible police-type baton.
I appreciate the creativity of the stencil, but I still think it sends the wrong message. Two wrongs don\’t make a right, last time I checked. I\’d rather take the high road… riding happily on my bicycle.
I much prefer it when CARS are shown as guns. I think it\’s more important to show how we AREN\’T killing anyone with our bikes. Peaceful noncompliance does work and to believe otherwise is lazy and foolish.
BREAKING NEWS: Hipster makes ham-fisted attempt at political statement
Also: thinks he\’s an \”underground\” \”graffiti artist\”
I agree with Jesse and Max. I can appreciate the creativity as well, but this is the wrong message, and indeed the opposite message.
Graffiti is not a good thing, especially on our wonderful bridges and multi-use paths.
S
It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
I\’ve seen graffiti (and t-shirts, posters, etc.) similar to this for years. Not once have I ever seen or heard of any of the self-proclaimed \”revolutionaries\” who post these (in this country) actually taking up arms. It\’s just rhetoric.
I gotta admit, though: good design on the stencil.
Even though I know who did it, I do not agree with it.
Don\’t point that thing at me.
You know, there are two ways to interpret this that immediately come to my mind.
One is \”fight back\” against violence with violence.
The other is that by riding a bike, we\’re \”figthting back\” (against wars for oil, pollution, global wqarming, etc.)– that cycling is a revolutionary act in this society..
I tend to see the latter message in the graffiti.
Still, I see how it has the potential to be interpreted the other way.
And yes, it\’s a very good design.
The message given is fight BACK which to me indicates defending yourself against someone attacking you. I think it is important that car drivers know that they can\’t push cyclists around, because the only reason they do push us around is because they think they can get away with it. Advocating defending yourself is not the same as advocating violence.
Within the gay community, before hate crime laws, Bash Back was formed to defend people against fag bashers.I think it did more to deter jocks from going out and beating up gay people than having more laws on the books did. Bullies tend to back down if they think they have a beating coming.
Stenciling is vandalism but I do not put it in the same category as tagging, which is just putting up your name, a pure act of ego. At least there is a message here.
I ride and drive. Should I just shoot myself?
I\’ve found it\’s really hard to shoot an AK-47 while riding.
Anonymous:
Don\’t shoot yourself, just ditch the car.
I thought it was saying that people who ride in the drops are violent – ride upright!
😉
Please don\’t take any of that seriously. Besides, everyone knows that the only \”civilized\” posture is recumbant.
*runs like hell*
\”The other is that by riding a bike, we\’re \”figthting back\” (against wars for oil, pollution, global warming, etc.)– that cycling is a revolutionary act in this society.\”
This was the same impression I got, Rixtir.
note it\’s a fixed or single speed. maybe it means those who ride such bikes should take up arms against those who ride geared bikes. or recumbants. or anything other than fixed or ss.
\”note it\’s a fixed or single speed. maybe it means those who ride such bikes should take up arms against those who ride geared bikes. or recumbants. or anything other than fixed or ss.\”
And maybe you\’re just trying to stir people up.
Vigilante,
I bike to work five days a week. I like to mountain bike on the weekends if I don\’t have to haul 1,000 pounds of demolition debris to the dump, or pick-up a few sheets of plywood.
The point is, we are all in this together. This pseudo-revolultionary crap is divisive and counterproductive. I bet it was fun to play revolutionary though…
I would love to se this \”artists\” BTA card. Do you suppose he contributes to the maitainance of this blog? I drive and I do both. So do a lot of people.
#16 & #18
Not only are recumbents the only civilized posture, they also make for the best shooting position (at least with a camera).
yawn
oh, hey. maybe. jes maybe. kind of like inflammatory art, eh?
i\’m with rixtir and wyatt. a literal interpretation of the words and image are likely not what the graf artist had in mind.
it\’s a symbol designed to spark conversation. Mission accomplished.
Just a Banksy ripoff?
You can mount much more fire power on a Hummer than your handle-bars.
Lets avoid an arms race.
Until the artist steps forward let us not read too much into this stencil. Can anyone agree with me on that?
make a rose stencil and paint one in each barrel. peace.
Artist, no. Vandal, yes.
why do I get the feeling that the artist put way more thought into the design than (s)he did the message?
I could make plenty of dumb, inflammatory stencils. But would I actually go out and apply them– in good conscious? Probably not.
At least the feeble-minded can scribble a good-ol\’ harmless tag and not feel the lurking presence of a message, statement or meaning. Why, that\’d be quite irksome.
But maybe we\’re all reading too much into this, and the artist means only to suggest that automatic-weapon-shaped-bikes be deployed immediately to Iraq to intimidate the insurgency into agreeing that Bagdad really *could* use its very own Pearl district rife with fixies and jet black mantyhose.
\”note it\’s a fixed or single speed.\”
Actually, it could be a in-hub gear. In the USA usually 3 to 8 speeds, but in Europe they have up to 20 some odd speed in-hub gears! (the hubs alone cost more than most bikes though).
I hate Graffiti in all it\’s forms. Well intentioned or not.
Portland anti-graffiti program:
http://www.portlandonline.com/oni/index.cfm?c=32420
In good ol\’ american capitalism, I\’m selling tshirts with this design for $40 a shirt. Any takers?
I thought good ol\’ American capitalism was to charge what the market will bear…
K – this is nowhere near Banksy class.
I agree with Dabby – don\’t point that thing at me.
I first saw it on Aug. 12, so it pre-dates the Clinton road rage. My first reaction was discomfort, I don\’t wish to be lumped into a group with such an immediate violent image by mere association due to my method of transportation.
Anonymous:
But would you ditch the car if you could? That\’s all I\’m saying. Pie-in-the-sky, I guess.
i dig the stencil. its in a language (war metaphor/ reality) americans understand.
I\’m not opposed to some nice artistic graffiti, (compared to the average \”tag\”,) and as such, I\’m not really opposed to this. Although I do disagree with the message, and would love to see someone stencil a rose over it, and add the words \”with love\” to the bottom.
(I\’ve moved plywood on my bike trailer.) But understand Anonymous perfect, I\’ve rented a truck for loads to the dump, and when I was reshingling my roof… There are things that cars are good for, they aren\’t completely evil, it is just that we as a society use them more often than is appropriate…
This makes me just as mad as those irresponsible bikey \”Put the Fun Between Your Legs\” stickers and the way that message totally encouraged bike riding teens to have unsafe pre-marital sex with strangers during Zoobombs!!!
Rixtir (#36)
Please, please – the Republican leadership would prefer you NOT use the words \”bear\” and \”market\” in the same sentence. 😉
Besides, if the USHG sells the shirts for $40, Wal-Mart will just undercut him and pass the savings along to you.
Ok, time for me to stop commenting on this thread…
Yes, the Republicans definitely prefer bull.
Looks more like an AR-15/M-16 than an A to the K homeboy.
It\’s Banksy without the humor, actually. I mean, I get it on one level, but art should work on more than just that one level. I much prefer the pentabike stencil that Jonathan covered a while back. With that, you could not really be sure what it was about, and it made most (non-right-wing christian) people smile.
As for public art without permits (graffiti, stenciling, stickering), I\’m glad it exists, and I\’m glad it\’s illegal. Take a ride in the inner SE one day, and you\’ll be blown away.
It is graffiti, no doubt, and I hate graffiti.
I mean, even though some of it is nice, and maybe on the verge of being art, it is still vandalism. All of it.
Now the city is just going to have to pay someone to paint over it, which means in reality,
WE \”ALL\” HAVE TO PAY SOMEONE TO PAINT OVER IT!!!!!!!!!
That is how inconsiderate graffiti artists (hah!) are.
Totally counterproductive.
\”Looks more like an AR-15/M-16 than an A to the K homeboy.\”
nah, Mark, definitely a AK47.
You should come out sometime, mark. I can show you the difference between MY AK47 and MY Bushmaster(AR15/M16).
OH NOES, THAT\’S RIGHT. SOMEONE WHO RIDES BIKES ALL THE TIME ANNNNNNND OWNS GUNS!! OH NOES!
And shooting an AK wouldn\’\’t be that hard from a bike, they have little recoil and are quite light weight(which is what makes them so inaccurate).
Oh, great. Now Homeland Security will be spying on cyclists.