Facing a chameleon—How project INDIGO discovers and records new graffiti

Abstract

Graffiti are studied by, amongst many others, archaeologists, sociologists, (art) historians, linguists, ethnographers, architects, anthropologists, librarian scientists, geographers, criminologists, conservators, lawyers and architects. Although most of these professions rely on a digital representation of graffiti at a particular stage of their research, there has been strikingly little attention to how graffiti can effectively be monitored and digitally documented. And this is precisely one of the gaps that the heritage science project INDIGO is trying to fill. Through collaboration between geomatics, photography, data management and graffiti specialists, INDIGO aims to develop technical and logistical solutions that facilitate the systematic documentation, monitoring, and analysis of extensive graffiti-scapes. This paper focuses on the graffiti-discovering and data acquisition strategies INDIGO has been applying during its first project year. At the same time, the text explores new avenues for improving the existing approaches.