Jisoe
Jisoe (2005) an illegal yet necessary exploration of Melbourne graffiti culture. The film's focus is writer Justin 'Jisoe' Hughes, a bombastic, drawl talking, 24 year old whose raison d'être is to g…
Jisoe
Jisoe (2005) an illegal yet necessary exploration of Melbourne graffiti culture. The film's focus is writer Justin 'Jisoe' Hughes, a bombastic, drawl talking, 24 year old whose raison d'être is to go "all city." Filmed on hand held cameras in train yards, public transport and shopping centers in Western suburbs of Melbourne, the production of Jisoe imitates the street artists DIY knack. Audiences follow Jisoe as he rolls weaker writers for paint, racks new shoes and waxes lyrical about life as a writer in one of the graffiti meccas of the world. However, Jisoe represents the simultaneously celebrated and derided figure at the center of the Melbournian graffiti scene. For a city that brags about their street art, most locals engagement with the form is shallow-at-best. Melbournians (like most modern cities with active graffiti scenes) are quick to establish a dichotomy of good/bad graffiti. 'Good' graffiti being legal (or tacitly so) murals and colourful pieces, the 'Bad' being tags and pieces that a cafe owner wouldn't pay money to put on their establishment. This distinction is problematic in that the public justify the prosecution of the very writers pushing the art form forward in return for a proliferation of bland and commercially acceptable mural work. To most Melbournians, graffiti is merely a new form of advertising. Largely ignored, acceptable if unoffensive, even better if personally profitable. Juxtaposing McDonald's ads on trams with whole-cars by the CKA crew the documentary states the obvious, there is an already-existing struggle for aesthetic space, it is just policed differently. As the documentary shows, the practice of graffiti is complicated and messy. Writers are contesting private/public spaces with varying skill, style and tools. Like Jisoe's life, some of it exhilarating to witness, a lot of it hard to look at. In this way his life, like his art, demands and deserves an engagement that goes further than surface. If Jisoe's work is often misunderstood and unfairly categorized as 'Bad' graffiti, this is likely because he occupies a precarious and confronting social position within Melbourne. A position that is uncomfortable for those more privileged than him to engage with. Such recognition of his (and others) importance in the graffiti culture so lauded (yet outlawed) in Melbourne would surely obliterate the reductive good/bad dualism attached to street art. Jisoe's drive to bomb the streets, to fuck with the cops and to go all city is admirable even as it comes into conflict with his family life, financial stability and ultimately his freedom. As contradictory as this is, it is endemic of the struggle of modern city life. Jisoe bristles where others become "Matrixed" he chooses to run at pace with and across the trains, trams and security guards. To forgo writing is to sit stagnant, time and again he is drawn back to the whole-cars which fill his photo albums. His art is an inevitable expression of what Berman identified in his own New York City, a declaration that "We come from ruins, but we're not ruined."
Jisoe
Documentary
Film Details
Jisoe (2005) an illegal yet necessary exploration of Melbourne graffiti culture. The film's focus is writer Justin 'Jisoe' Hughes, a bombastic, drawl talking, 24 year old whose raison d'être is to go "all city." Filmed on hand held cameras in train yards, public transport and shopping centers in Western suburbs of Melbourne, the production of Jisoe imitates the street artists DIY knack. Audiences follow Jisoe as he rolls weaker writers for paint, racks new shoes and waxes lyrical about life as a writer in one of the graffiti meccas of the world.
However, Jisoe represents the simultaneously celebrated and derided figure at the center of the Melbournian graffiti scene. For a city that brags about their street art, most locals engagement with the form is shallow-at-best. Melbournians (like most modern cities with active graffiti scenes) are quick to establish a dichotomy of good/bad graffiti.
'Good' graffiti being legal (or tacitly so) murals and colourful pieces, the 'Bad' being tags and pieces that a cafe owner wouldn't pay money to put on their establishment. This distinction is problematic in that the public justify the prosecution of the very writers pushing the art form forward in return for a proliferation of bland and commercially acceptable mural work. To most Melbournians, graffiti is merely a new form of advertising.
Largely ignored, acceptable if unoffensive, even better if personally profitable. Juxtaposing McDonald's ads on trams with whole-cars by the CKA crew the documentary states the obvious, there is an already-existing struggle for aesthetic space, it is just policed differently. As the documentary shows, the practice of graffiti is complicated and messy.
Writers are contesting private/public spaces with varying skill, style and tools. Like Jisoe's life, some of it exhilarating to witness, a lot of it hard to look at. In this way his life, like his art, demands and deserves an engagement that goes further than surface.
If Jisoe's work is often misunderstood and unfairly categorized as 'Bad' graffiti, this is likely because he occupies a precarious and confronting social position within Melbourne. A position that is uncomfortable for those more privileged than him to engage with. Such recognition of his (and others) importance in the graffiti culture so lauded (yet outlawed) in Melbourne would surely obliterate the reductive good/bad dualism attached to street art.
Jisoe's drive to bomb the streets, to fuck with the cops and to go all city is admirable even as it comes into conflict with his family life, financial stability and ultimately his freedom. As contradictory as this is, it is endemic of the struggle of modern city life. Jisoe bristles where others become "Matrixed" he chooses to run at pace with and across the trains, trams and security guards.
To forgo writing is to sit stagnant, time and again he is drawn back to the whole-cars which fill his photo albums. His art is an inevitable expression of what Berman identified in his own New York City, a declaration that "We come from ruins, but we're not ruined.".