dessalles

This image of a so-called “Wii Spray” device, thesis project of a one Martin Lihs, has been making appearances on design and tech blogs lately. Discussion of the prototype has so far focused on heightened realism the controller would bring to a street-art videogame. Personally, I’m partial to the rainbow cable – but that might just be me. Aesthetics of cordage aside, what I find most intriguing about the device isn’t it’s application as a gaming interface but the potential to repurpose it as a recording device. TiVo for graffiti, as it were. So lets put our Johnny Chung Lee hats on for a moment and think this through…

As far as I can gather, all Martin Lihs has purportedly done is cram the contents of a Wiimote into a model spray can. But what if it were real? Could we record the strokes (sprays?) of a graf artist tagging a wall? Pentop Computers for tag crews. Due to the range of motion necessary for painting and the inherent directionality of the Wiimote’s infrared camera, I don’t think tracking would be possible using Lihs’ setup since it’s unlikely the camera would always be pointed at the IR LEDs (Wii Sensor Bar) mounted on the wall. However, if the LEDs were attached to the can and instead the camera were mounted to the wall, keeping the LEDs in sight is no longer dependent on the orientation of the spray can. Connect the LEDs to a switch so they’re only lit when the tip is depressed and you’re more or less good to go. You’d still need a way to distinguish colors and I’m not entirely sure if one camera is enough, but the point is it’s doable at relatively little cost – I think.

Assuming there existed this system that could record the painting process and produce a perfect vector representation of a graffiti artist’s work, would anyone use it? Most of you are probably familiar with the Graffiti Research Labs’ L.A.S.E.R. Tag which exchanges permanence for legality and extreme scale. That seems to be fairly popular. But in this case would the ability to digitally playback, map and archive a painting be enough to counter the replicability and de-localization of the work? Or are those qualities too critical to graffiti’s inherent purpose? Obviously, if every spray were instantly geo-tagged and uploaded to something like Graffiti Archaeology prosecution would become a whole lot easier, but it’d be quite cool to remotely & virtually watch these artists work.