German railways to test anti-graffiti drones
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
That makes me kind of ambivalent about this undertaking :) But I also understand that for the Deutsche Bahn this means substantial damage and costs. On the other hand, more effective enforcement is probably mostly going to result in a larger ratio of quick-n-dirty tags, making the overall appearance messier, uglier and more vandalised.
Now I don't think that people should just be able to paint their murals on whatever property they don't own. That's not right. I just think it won't really change the appearance for the better.
I also don't like drones, btw. Flying surveillance robots? Brrr. At least ED-209 couldn't climb stairs ...
bingo. back in the day in Poland, the Tricity railway picked up a fight against graffiti, they cleaned stuff up quickly, when they couldn't afford to clean they just painted over (kind of vandalised the graffiti, lol), the security got really brutal on writers, and stuff got ugly to a point where people got hurt. as a result, a lot of writers around there pivoted from only painting to some really crazy vandalism action. that attracts more people that less identify themselves as independent artists and more as vandals opposed to the opressive system, and as you can imagine those are harder to work with. fighting youth movements with surveillance and force always gets ugly.
I am not saying this will prevent the die hards who like the thrill of going into depots at 3am for a 15min job that most of the time ends up very poorly, but this would probably be more effective and cost way less than drones!
In what sense?
If the don't want repaint damages, then don't fucking repaint them.
People like them fine as they are. Young people at least. As for the older people, they will give their place to younger people sooner or later.
I doubt that. At least I am a young German and I prefer my trains to be clean. And I'm absolutely certain most young people here think the same way.
There is graffiti that I enjoy, but the majority of it doesn't exactly improve the looks of things.
Also, there is a slight problem with people feeling insecure when using public transportation due to repeated incidents where people were beaten up or stabbed in trains. Having graffiti all over the place makes especially older people less likely to use public transportation and therefore reduces the income.
Were? In squareville? Because the young Germans I've talked to in Mitte sure didn't think that way.
>Also, there is a slight problem with people feeling insecure when using public transportation due to repeated incidents where people were beaten up or stabbed in trains.
That's orthogonal.
>Having graffiti all over the place makes especially older people less likely to use public transportation and therefore reduces the income.
Huh? How is that conclusion reached? I hope not with the "broken window" theory -- there are graffiti in affluent and well maintained city districts too.
Remember that your opinion isn't The One and that everybody has different likes. I agree that graffiti on trains normally looks terrible, but in other places graffiti can be very interesting.
First, Deutsche Bahn simply could hire a security agency for a fraction of the money.
Second, they're trying to solve a non-problem. Their trains are notoriously and regularly late. Their fares are horribly complex and overpriced. They only offer Internet access on two of their high speed routes through Germany. You want Internet access while travelling to Germany's main startup hub Berlin? Well, bad luck for you. No such service. Their trains fail regulary during spring because of the rain, they fail during summer because the trains' air conditioning can't handle more than 35 degrees centigrade, they fail during autumn because their trains' wheels can't deal with wet leaves on the tracks and they fail during winter because of a few snowflakes.
I couldn't care less what their trains look like from the outside if they didn't smell like piss and sweat on the inside. Maybe, they should fix that issue first before buying some expensive toy with their shareholders' money, which happens to be taxpayers' money since Deutsche Bahn is still more or less owned by the German state.
or leave it alone and it will cost you close to zero and still look better. wholecars ara PITA for travellers so windows need to get cleaned, but I thought that vandal squad hysteria after the 90s graffiti boom has ended. I guess somebody needs to pump up their budget requirements.
While the problem is definitely less nowadays, the difficult to reach places where graffiti appears around German stations sometimes makes you appreciate how much motivation and effort the artists(?) must have.
Then here's something a little sadder: this guys are more or less considered heroes. I've never seen the video, but I've heard the story from a tourist guide, who made it clear that this was an awesome stunt that should be admired.
Then again, keep in mind that Berlin has a rather complicated story with Graffiti (the city owes a lot to its starving artists), so the Western point of view is not the only one to keep in consideration.
this one's better http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMuEagQbk9k
Deutsche Bahn, and I wouldn't be surprised if a huge majority of their customers agrees with them, thinks trains should look in the way they've painted the trains to look.
We're not talking painting the Guggenheim or the Parthenon here. Have you even seen the kind of buildings that get painted?
Clean wall: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_sIjqDD2mNLA/TUaraGIrWsI/AAAAAAAACi...
Graffiti: http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5509/979/1600/graffiti_po...
http://cdn4.vtourist.com/4/4851534-Graffiti_Building_Amsterd...
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NC_JoI7fecY/S4EFOrE4ISI/AAAAAAAABY...
http://ih1.redbubble.net/image.11426410.1185/flat,550x550,07...
Why not go further and put up the train carriage specs/dimensions in an easy to use template online, so you can lay out your design in advance to take account of the windows.
Going any further like sponsoring chosen designs might backfire because then it all gets viewed as too commercial, and we'll get people defacing the corporate graffiti.
such stuff has been available in graffiti shops for decades :) but a little hint: nobody cares about windows :)
> Going any further like sponsoring chosen designs might backfire because then it all gets viewed as too commercial, and we'll get people defacing the corporate graffiti.
yes. google for 'adisux', an Adidas' Warsaw fiasco when they covered part of the horse racing track wall (longest graffiti gallery in Europe) for an ad and got trashed to the point the scandal got to tv, their pr firm got into panic mode for a week and in general, how to say it, their marketing campaign didn't work out.
My opinion - the only proper way to deal with this is to commission some street art on the walls and cars themselves.
In a few places where the artists have been officially sanctioned it worked acceptably.
If by "battle" you mean one-sided murder attack, and "good track record" you mean "including killing tens of kids in weddings and such".
As a rule I hate purely technical/financial solution that helps someone to isolate himself from a social problem and not solving it.
I'm totally there with you on this.
We cannot solve social problems by just piling technology on them.
Just an an example (OT), it's like the thing with the right to privacy: no, cryptography ain't gonna solve the issue.
For one, they could outlaw the use of cryptography and force you to provide a passkey or be jailed. Second, that might work for a tech savvy person communicating with another tech savvy person -- if he's paranoid all the time.
What about when his non tech-savvy friend mentions his secret on a plain text email to another friend? And what about the culture of hiding, instead of a proud culture of "this is not the fucking government's business" that this creates?
One of my favorite examples: http://5ptz.com/
If you're able to see it in NYC this summer, I highly recommend it - there are rumors that the owner is tearing it down to build residential high-rises.
http://www.dw.de/de-maizieres-euro-hawk-problems-drone-on/a-...
Yes, take every bit of freedom and artistic expression in the urban environment -- just because there's technology to enable it.
When there'll be technology to enable having people zapped if they do or think anything those in power don't like, they'll employ it too.
Sadly it's pretty rare to find something like a "technology blog" on any German corporate website, apart from a few startups.