Donna Foley

Ecce Signum: the Significance of Writing As Image Donna Foley

This book explores the connections and disconnections encoded in verbal, written and visual languages in two parallel practices in contemporary Australian culture. Predominant is a research project involving Australian urban aerosol graffiti otherwise referred to as writing. Laterally, the other documents a studio practice informed by the first. In each, two forms of expression, graphism and language, are inextricably entwined. Writing might be hypothesized as a battle between insiders and outsiders. Alternatively the practice may be a counteraction to one-sided and authoritarian forms of communication, a response to typographic print culture or a retreat to a medieval chirographic culture. In writing, a confusion of texts, characterizations and iconography from various traditions and styles frequently converge on the walls. Multiple inter-texts coalesce in implicit visual and verbal expressions in the sub-culture that is urban graffiti.