The London, UK, Borough of Lewisham has launched a great idea to clean up the place, using MMS (via Springwise).
The public is invited to download a Java app to their phones. Then they take photos of offending graffiti, dumped rubbish, abandoned cars etc and the photo is uploaded to the council who rush round and clear it up. Well, maybe not rush exactly, but they will sort it out.
It’s not very clear from the website exactly how this all works. I have asked them and will update the post if I get answers.
But I assume that y You take the photo via the Java app, which then uploads it to Lewisham Council - a bit like a white label ShoZu.
I’m not clear how they know where the offending material actually is (some kind of geo-tagging?) or if this costs the sender anything, if only in data charges. I can’t see how it could be free, but I could be wrong.
Ian Blackburn from the technical solution developers, bbits Mobility kindly responded to my request for more info. The cost of the MMS, is the same as normal to the sender, which seems fair enough. Even though the normal cost is ridiculously high in comparison to an SMS, which in turn is ridiculously high in the context of the amount of data the operators is shifting around. But that’s another story.
Currently, the location of the photo is identified by the sender texting the street name with the photo. Old fashioned, but an efficient work around in the absence of more accurate technology. Ian tells me there are plans to automate this in future versions.
Anyway, what a great initiative and I’m sure we’ll see this repeated all over the world. My only slight concern is that the name of the campaign is “Love Lewisham” which strikes me as somewhat over ambitious. “Like Lewisham” would be hard enough. Only joking, I hear there’s some very nice parts of Catford.
Pic from Wikipedia.
[tags]grafitti, mms, java, j2me[/tags]
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i love graffiti why do they need to clean it up…..would u prefer blank ugly walls or walls that are painted and colorfull.
MMS - a purpose at last!…
MMS to Combat London Grafitti at MobHappy Yay - at last a sensible purpose for MMS (other than sending photos of the kids with mucky faces to all and sundry): calling in the White Knights of the local authority to……
Leave the grafitti, submit capiltalist grafitti (adverts) instead! Public space is public space not public space(TM)
Hello Russell, I’m glad you like the idea - all credit goes to Lewisham’s Head of Environment, Nigel Tyrell, whose idea this was and who did a lot of the programming himself in his spare time.
To answer the point made by marco, we’re not that keen on graffiti because it is (along with other environmental problems) associated with obesity and lower levels of physical activity. If anyone is interested in the research it can be found here.
That’s a great idea. It empowers citizens to help keep their city clean with very little effort. Why not snap and submit a photo while idling at a stop light?
u guy`s are such assho…why do you want to stop graffiti ? that`s street culture …art….it`s the voice of the nation not polluted by the government the voice of the free people…you have no idea about making a graffiti and how hard it is..the pressure and stuff…u just see the artwork not the people(s) behind it and im not just saying that because i am in a Taggin Crew in Romania…
As a former Enforcement Officer for a london borough I think this is a great idea, it means I could stay in the office drinking coffee and not have to go out on site to take the pictures myself.
Regarding Grafitti art, I would hardly call the mindless tagging that brain dead chavs spray all over london do as ART. Any chav caught holding a sray can and wearing a hoodie should be publically exectued. We could all use our phones to record that, Hang on is that not a trend already set by the chavs!!
“To answer the point made by marco, we’re not that keen on graffiti because it is (along with other environmental problems) associated with obesity and lower levels of physical activity. If anyone is interested in the research it can be found here.”
OH Puleeeaaase. Correlation is not causation. How about you take everyone’s tellys if you actually want to affect obesity rates — that and give up the freakin’ chip shops…you might actually save some lives.
Graffiti is ART - Advertising is ASSAULT.
another interesting one…
Google patents free Wi-FiThe
search-engine giant has developed three technologies for offering
wireless Internet access, and advertising, free of charge. Plus: London
fights graffiti with cameraphones.
By Owen Thomas, Business 2.0 Magazine online edito…
Let me start things off with a few of my own definitions/opinions:
Graffiti: the art of strategically placing graphics on an urban surface with prior thought put into the work. This could be a quick but clean marker tag in the right spot or a heavily thought out multi-color piece that covers an entire wall.
“Boming”: the repeated use of a certain tag or character or “throw-up” (a quick piece, usually one to two colors) that are placed in public areas to battle corporate advertising by catching the public’s eye. “Bombs” are always well thought out and usually don’t cause society that much damage (ex. a piece covering billboard advertising that runs 50 times in one city in addition to TV/radio advertising which, sadly, cannot be painted on…)
Tagging/”Mobbing”: marking up property with little to no care of how it looks, what it’s on, or the damage being caused. Taggers usually care more about the attention they get from their peers and the ego that comes along with it than what they are doing to the property.
The sad thing is, due to the abundance of taggers emerging from middle schools/highschools all across the globe, who are vandalizing hateful messages across school campuses and ruining small business owners front shop window’s with glass etch and drill bits, all of graffiti is blamed for a small group’s wrong doings. It breaks my heart to see a piece that someone put serious work into get buffed the next day thanks to a shop owner (rightfully) complaining about his/her windows being ruined by some 14 year old trying to get attention.
I think this MMS service could be helpful in cleaning up trash, abandoned cars, and vandalism, but could also be harmful to the group of people out there who respect graffiti as an artform. If you don’t get it that is fine, but it’s not that hard to distinguish what took more time, thought, and creativity to do: a 3D, multicolor display of letters and characters, or a sloppy thin lined tag on a wall. I don’t go running through all of the local art galleries and roll thick, white paint over all of the art you like to look at, so please treat us (the true graffiti artists) with a little respect. If it really bothers you that much to see some colorful lettering on a wall that you pass by once a day, just look the other way. It’s not that hard. And yes, it’s true, some one, somewhere, in some highlevel position will eventually be angry with their billboard being painted over, but hey, what they don’t know can’t hurt them. It’s not like they aren’t being seen 20 times a day, and the covering of one billboard drops their sales by 10%. Most of the time, they have no clue. And if it really bothers you that much to see some colorful lettering on a wall, that you might pass by once a day, then just look the other way. It would take a lot less energy, time, and money than complaining about it via MMS, just to get it buffed over with an ugly, off shade of white. I’m sure its much more beautiful than the pile of trash overflowing from the bin. If this service is sucessful, I hope that the public be eduacted enough to distinguish between pure vandalism and pure art.
SOPEone.. I hear what your sayin. U know whats goin down. All these damn Toys need to pratice before they go out and make an ass of themself. Its that kind of graffiti that makes people pissed off, the kids doing it just to vandalize…Graffiti IS ART AND IS ART IS A CRIME THAN HOW COME PICASSO NEVER DUN TIME?
[...] Cleaning up the neighborhood [...]
[...] MobHappy reports on a new initiative by the Lewisham Borough council to adpot a system of reporting graffiti and general eye-sores via MMS. [...]
Graffiti will never die & Berlin is Style-City Nr.1!!!
haha The irony of this is that by constantly cleaning more and more you simply encourge more (what u consider to be) ‘ugly’ graffiti, ie the hardcore bombin that you all hate so much.
Graff is never gonna die, it is way way bigger than u will ever know. Laugh all u like but a scene still goin strong after 20 years is a scene lookin like it will do at least another 20. Cleanin has always been an issue since day one. It has never stopped writers. If prison, serious risk of death, asbos etc dont stop writers why would a bit of brown paint? All u are doin by cleaning more is encourage young writers to simply tag more ‘ugly’ shit everywhere as they will think why bother spendin 20 mins/half an hour on a piece when its gonna get cleaned in the next few days. They will simply wack up a quick outline, throwie or bare reaches and then walk by the next day and do the same if its been cleaned! takes only a few seconds to hit up a tag 30 seconds to cover a wall with em.
Also by doing this u push riters who wont to do pieces and dubs up to hard to reach places. Rooftops bridges hangdowns etc u will see much more of this if the buff continues cos the buffers aint got the bollox to go where real riters do.
I think the whole thing is funny really, The buff has always had little bursts of energy thoughout the history of graff. This time it is only cos the Govenment wants to clean up london for the olympics thats all. I just like the way they trick the public into thinking they are REALLY contributing to the crackdown on graff HAHHAHHAHHAHHAHHAHHA jokers. The only graffers any of you will help to catch are a bunch of chav nobody’s from your waste town local estates. The ones that really doing 90% of london damage all know what they r doing! Its a lifestyle not a hobby and if a whole division of the Metropolitan Police force ie the BTP can only catch a handful a year, and even when they up the anty at xmas with ‘operation silverback’ set up to proctect london transport from graffiti attacks on xmas 2007-what happens, the graff community laughs in the faces and two london underground stations get completely ablitorated (camden town and brixton for those that dont know)… So do’u really think a few MMS text messages make a difference? honestly?
surely painting and graffiti are the same thing???
its still changing the colour of a wall! just in different styles
the problem with the government and most people in society is that they dont understand graffiti because it doesnt pay! (the illegal stuff oviously)
i dont understand why the governement and people in genral cant see that graffiti is here too stay! love it or hate it… buff it… arrest people for it… do whatever it wont stop its like a virus once u like it its there for life! u have to understand it too belive it! do get rid of by all means us graffiti writers will just graff over it agen and agen and agen… plus the “tagging” probly has more artistical talent than all of the modern tate gallery! do not for a second think that it isnt art because everything in this world is art everything u do and see is an art.
people stop being soo close minded and look into the art form atleast understand it and why we do it and why we continue to defy the law by doing it!
u will hear all the time how much it is too remove it probly billions in the uk… ever wondered what would happen if u left it hang on dont tell me it wouldnt cost anything… this is brainwashing at its maximum and everytime the government want u too be on their side is by telling u how much it costs… and then u hate it an instant dislike for graffiti…
but yer clear up litter and dumped cars… graffiti but theres no point becos graffiti will not stop…
peace x
so much money is being wasted on cleaning areas of graffiti which did actually used to look good,for example in a drive to reduce the graffiti around my part of london the council being absolute braindead morons decided to clean 60 thousand square meters of graffiti from the area, this essentially was a good idea but they are very dense and put no thought into where they would clean, they painted a large legal park full of wildstyles, and burners completely brown. and all the train tracks which had years of full colour pieces, which alot of effort had been put into,got painted brown. this indeed keeps the area clean/boring 4 a week, however then instead of people going with a really nice colour sceme and out line to do a piece, people: due to either the risk of getting arrested or because of the fact that whatever is painted will be cleaned quickly tend to do scrappy tags and 1 line throw ups instead so as to cause as much damage as poss using the least amount of paint, the opposite of what used to happen. So by not researching the areas they are cleaning the council have not only succesfully driven the legal writers who were easy to control on to the streets away from the legal parks but they have created areas which are covered week after week with scribble thus upping the incidents of tresspass and vandalism i’d say 90 percent,:due to the fact that the graffiti is done then removed over and over costing a vast amount more than if they left the walls because there was no space for new pieces anyway so they wouldnt be getting painted anyway. graffiti on houses etc fair play, but honestly its like the council have downsyndrome. if i a 19 year old can come up with a more logical inexpensive way of dealing with it.. these people need 2 be fired or trained better. morons
i meant 6000 square meters