About a painted cow

A graffiti is not a simple draw in a wall. It supposes a metamorphosis of the wall. It makes it change from an architectonically needed element, in other words, an element from a whole structure which has not a meaning by itself but by the confluence of other elements, into a unit of significance. This change empowers both the image shown in the wall -as a new meaning generator- and the wall -as a mean of communication.

Once this fact is fully realized, the use of new “canvas” to do graffiti does not have to surprise the viewer. It cannot be denied that the image analyzed in this section is shocking, but this should not stop us from trying to dive into it and find the answer to this paper's aim: is this a revolutionary weapon?

First of all, and following the starting logic, the meaning of the cow has changed after Mr. Banky's action. A cow is a herbivore mammal from which humans extract milk and meat. It is usually related with country and green meadows. What is seen in the image is that, a cow in a green meadow. It could be a bucolic post-card from English little village. The difference strives in what the author has added to the cow “To advertise here call 0800, Banksy”. As it was said in the first paragraph, the cow has changed from an animal to a medium of communication. With this new character, the message it held has a relevant importance. That is why I affirm this cow is no longer a cow, but a hoarding.

This radical transformation can be seen as a revolutionary weapon. There are two inherent critiques to the Consumer Society in the image that once put together clarify this point of view. The first one is related to the tremendous quantity of publicity and the variety of places where it can be found. Here, Mr. Banksy might be trying to make the viewer realize the exposition he has to publicity by writing and advertisement in a bizarre lieu. The second one is the fragility of non urbanized places. The author can be using his work here to show how a typical urban item -a hoarding in this case- appears in the countryside and how astonishing can it be when a incautious stroller finds his eccentric hoarding. Both factors combined fit in the reason given in this paper to consider Mr. Banksy's work a revolutionary weapon.

Visto en: Del Real, P. (2010)Resistance in our Consumer Society. An overview on Banksy's work as a revolutionary weapon. WP Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona