The pop artist Kelvin Wise, better known by his graffiti tag Onelife183, uses the 4.0 and 5.0 technologies, to bring innovative perspectives to today’s street art culture. Throughout the development of street culture, graffiti artists have managed to stay true to the fact that art has a purpose and all artists are the universe’s canvas and spray can, bringing social injustices to the forefront, and using graffiti as a tool for social change. Artistic expression can be achieved through any new technology, and revolutionary artists like Onelife183 have adapted them all.
Art as a whole is being reimagined through new technologies.
Onelife183 has helped change our world through his strong visual social commentary expressed through his work. Like Mason Storm, Mr Brainwash and Banksy, his art speaks a multi-universal language. These great art kahunas have pioneered how graffiti has hybridised with technology, revolutionising how art is being perceived on limitless and border free platforms, to bring awareness to artistic activism.
Onelife183, grew up in Oxfordshire, UK, in a quaint medieval market town called Thame. Here he laid his graffiti roots down with his throw ups and tags. Onelife183 and his crew The EDS, also known as The Essential Design System, used to threw up pieces at their local secondary school and tagged around town. The EDS also had their hand in B-boy breakdancing. The artist remembers fondly how they as teens used to take their rolled up lino sheets down to the high street on weekends and just muck about on it. In his twenties he continued to develop his artistic talent, while being heavily drawn to house and garage music. The street and art culture experienced a wildly creative time during the 90s. House and Garage DJs like Todd Edwards, Tuff Jam, Karl "Tuff Enuff" Brown, Matt "Jam" Lamont, MJ Cole and El-B etched a new era into the bustling London street culture. Onelife183 started where all graffiti artists start: bombing. His throw-ups appeared all over London in the late 80’s and early 90’s.
Reminiscences of his past experiences throughout his life are still evident in his work today. The artist still uses spray paint and other street graffiti methods, such as stencilling, tagging and paste ups featuring his trademark spray can in his work combined with multifaceted collage techniques and digital media. Onelife183 has embraced new technologies and as a king of graffiti himself, has paved the way for emerging artists to be inspired by his combination of pop art, graffiti, stencilling and digital media. Onelife183 imitates consumerism, capitalism and popular culture using the graphic styles of the times, popular comic formats, and the expressions of fashion models and celebrities to convey his messages challenging society ills and the mundane.
“We live in a throw-away society, be it consumables, on every scale, from food to electronics to cosmetics. How sad is it that most people on average only wear a piece of clothing 5-7 times when there are some people in the world that can’t afford to put a clean shirt on their back. You would think that with all the billionaires in the world, all the money, regardless of individual wealth, they just assume that running water is granted, when some children have to walk for miles to get water that is infested and shared with livestock. I look at how sad it all is”. ~ Onelife183
In response to pop art from the 1950s, graffiti emerged as one of its continuations. The street art culture we know today was pioneered by the original kings of graffiti such as Ron English, Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat and the Sprayer of Zurich (who was the first graffiti artist in a line of many to be arrested), during the 1960s. In the 1980s, as the street art movement in New York reached its peak and hip-hop and electronic music subcultures swept across the UK, London's Brick Lane and the streets of Shoreditch began to be transformed into works of art by kings like Drax WD, Robbo and Onelife183. Graffiti in South Africa only really took off after the 80s after apartheid was abolished. Local South African graffiti artists like Rekso Le Hond, Rasty, Riot_TopTwo, MarsAkaMrMorris That Damn Vandal, Mf_Briz Drizzy Drake, Tapz, Killa Love, Fal.Kab, MFBriz and Mein163 have all been influenced by pioneers such as Gogga, Falko, and Soake (Attackofthebread)
In order to create the future, graffiti artists and street art creators need to look to their pasts and roots.
Some graffiti writers like Onelife183, MrBrainwash, Killarilla, Saek_B2B, HBomb, Evyrein, Mohawk69, and UtopiaPanda have shifted their focus from creating illegal street art to developing more formal artwork. Most graffiti artists produce work on the street as well as on canvas and other traditional surfaces. Artists’ like Onelife183 is the muse to my own imagination and creativity. The first time I experienced his art, it literally took my breath away. The more my curiosity grew about his art and the reasons behind his work, the stronger my own creativity grew. All human beings find inspiration and happiness in some form or another. Just as Banksy finds his inspiration through the work of Blek le Rat, so too has Onelife183 been greatly influenced by New York’s graffiti artist Taki183. In turn Onelife183’s influence stretches far beyond any measure as his means of expression has evolved with the evolution of new technologies.
South African cultural theorists like Mbembe (2007) and Nuttall (2004), predicted that future globalisation will cultivate a new epoch of youth movement that entail the "fusion of sartorial, visual and textual cultures which yields a dense interconnectivity" between them.
Graffiti today is interconnected with both traditional culture (where street art is created in public, usually illegal, places) and digital media. The relationship is specifically interdependent on one another in today’s Zeitgeist. Although Graffiti is changing with the times, it stays true to its roots within street culture. Street art has the power to transform not just the city it exists in but also the mind of the global viewer.
“Graffiti has the power to change how people view and interact with art”. ~ David Mann. Between10and5
Street art transforms the environment in which it's displayed in and the object it is displayed on. The space its being exhibited in and the reasons why it’s there also adds to its social critique. Although street art is geographically restricted, it is an integral part of our urban environment. Our cities and cultures have been enriched by this creative practice from the pre-historic rock paintings to ancient Roman and Greek protest slogans painted on city walls. Due to the internet, images of graffiti are now spread around the globe and are no longer constrained to a specific city or culture. As street art and technology continue to expand, new creative outlets and audiences are being created as a result of their interaction and extension.
It’s evocative of South African artist Walter Battiss’ “Fook Island” philosophy (Island of the imagination). Battiss believed that all art exists in the ‘now’ and this philosophy manifested through his creation of Fook Island, which was always in the ‘now’ and always an essential part of reality. Batiss’ philosophy stems from his strong opposition to the Conceptualist Art movement of the 1960s and 70s. The movement showcased the construction of Art being confined in a 'moment' in which it was created. Onelife183’s art is interlaced with Fook’s philosophy that Art exists in the ‘now’, as we co-exist in a world of pop culture and fads. This backdrop is where graffiti street art is captured in a moment in time, yet it continuously transforms into being forever in the “now”. Onelife183’s art brings forth the fruition of a reality where life is beautiful and freedom for humanity exist, creating a universal consciousness of “Ubuntu”. As an interconnected culture, its players does not have to settle for a world where poverty, war and genocide still exist. Collective consciousness is being created by artists inspiring a whole street culture movement where any viewer on any street in any country across the world are being inspired which has the promise to bring social change.
"You’re not their puppet on a string, you can do anything, it’s true if you really want to, you can do anything you want”. ~ Onelife183
There is a recognition of the binaries of remoteness and closeness. Not to give my age away, growing up in a world without the internet, street and hip-hop culture purely existed through physical togetherness. Likeminded people would get together and share an experience, with my fondest being a dance floor with some house, garage, hip hop, drum n base or some Ninja Tunes. The remoteness and closeness of art existing on a dual platform nowadays, has not prevented my feeling of connection with other artists. In fact, the connections I have made sharing ideas with other creatives, has been my happy place. The binary opposition that the concept of remoteness and closeness creates, has inspired the rapid evolution of street culture. An utopian culture where there are no borders or walls to restrict our freedom or control our thoughts, behaviour, movement or living conditions. The dual platform offers us a world where we can share our beliefs and ideas openly. Street culture has transmuted into an unrestricted global culture challenging us to explore experiences and change our routines in order to explore unknown territory, unlock new discoveries of the true creative self and reiterate the cosmic message of a new vision of the world.
Creativity is a state of mind and is infamously mysterious. It is the state of consciousness in which you enter into the sanctum of your psyche and the vital force with the innate potential to manifest a beautiful world. Any creative act enhances the beauty of the world. Creativity is an attitude, an inner approach, how you look at things. Creativity elevates an awakening of one’s own purpose. Onlife183’s art mentions a hint of what our world could be if all mankind could exist in the now to start making changes to the reality of our world.
With the acceleration of globalisation, the idea of identity, community and belonging are structured by connections of many places, including various nations and ancestral countries of origin. Mbembe (2007) explains that there are deep influences in the melting pot of culture, economics and religion. The author links these influences to “track and reveal the paradoxes rooted in the processes of transformation of space, power, and subjectivity in a context of fluctuation, mobility, and extreme spatial polarisation” (Mbembe, 2007). Great artists like Onelife183 and Banksy have used graffiti as a platform to bring social awareness to everyone by being innovators of merging graffiti’s platforms. This, in turn uplift the consciousness of its audience. There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through their art and this expression is unique. It raises our vibrations and creates positive outcomes. It brings a great amount of awareness to a much wider global street culture. The message their art delivers, creates vibrational energy that has the possibility to heal our planet and one day free mankind from outdated social conventions. For centuries artists have been considered as highly intuitive and regarded as mystics. This can be attributed to the artist’s creative process which involves the ingenuity to imagine and access subtle senses. The alliance of human and divine consciousness is a spiritual tool of evolutionary vision. Artists inspire not only new ways of imagining the world but also other creative expressions that delves into the altered state of perception. It is a knowing beyond knowledge.
“The secret to doing anything
is believing that you can do it.
Anything that you believe you can do in strong enough,
you can do.
Anything.
As long as you believe”.
~ Onelife183
Graffiti has drawn on multiple fields of influence, that if interpreted in the abstract, can mean the existence of a multi-layered idea of identity, community, and belonging which are expanding across various borders and cultures. There is a hypersonic fusion of graffiti art and street culture worldwide, creating one blended world of new familiarity and a sense of belonging and connection. This uninhibited global culture makes each one of us masters of our own universe. Onelife183’s art pieces are a powerful tool to inspire, empower and elevate positive vibrations of the universe connecting the hearts of people and making a difference in the consciousness of humankind.
Thanks for reading, until my next post xxx
Christina Elgie
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Credits:
Mbembe, A. 2007. Afropolitanism. In Africa Remix: Contemporary Art of a Continent. Edited by Njami, S. [Online] https://books. google. co.za/books?id=rQbiP0M5tCUC&pg=PA9&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q&f=false. [Accessed 4 May 2022].
Nuttall, S. 2004. Stylizing the self: the Y generation in Rosebank, Johannesburg. Public culture. 2004 16(3): 430-452. DOI: 10. 1215/08992363-16-3-430.
Mann, D 2022. Between 10 and 5. From tags to murals. South African graffiti’s move into the accepted public eye. [Online] https://10and5.com/2016/02/25/from-tags-to-murals-south-african-graffitis-move-into-the-accepted-public-eye/ [Accessed 4 May 2022].
Smyk, A. 2017. From the Street to the Screen: Street Art’s Influence on Digital Design. [Online] https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2017/07/07/from-the-street-to-the-screen-street-arts-influence-on-digital-design [Accessed 5 May 2022].
The Artist Editorial . 2019. The Power of Pop Art. [Online] https://www.theartist.me/art/power-of-pop-art/ [Accessed 4 May 2022].
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