Hyperreality.

It could be argued that our culture itself is hyperreal in the sense that we are overruled by technological elements infiltrating almost every aspect of our lives, from entertainment, to communication, even through to our most intimate relationships, replacing and substituting reality with technology 

Although decended from a non technologically driven art, graffiti is one aspect of our culture that has become extremely hyperreal due to the introduction of technology and social media. The art of graffiti has always been about representing oneself, however it essentially starts to become about how one would like to be represented, how one would like to be viewed. This element of portraying oneself through use of a pseudonym has been dramatically incresed through a mojaor shift in how it is viewed.

Twenty years ago a piece of graffiti would be painted on a wall, and only people 'using' that wall as part of their scenery would be exposed to it, leaving the painting to sit in the environment and become a new part of people's everyday lives. At this point the artist and painting had a brief moment of connection where they interacted, the painter left a perception of himself behind and left the painting to move on to his next location. From this point on the painting is real, it is a small part of the painter left in a large world.

It is the introduction of photography and the internet which then takes the painting, the brief moment the painter had to represepnt himself through the paint on to the wall, and breaks it down into an infinitely distributable product. Uploading it on websites and posting it on forums allows the painter to continually represent himself and his work for as long as possible, it no longer has a place or story, it is simply a photograph. The painter then continues to paint, but not for the reasons of pure passion and drive. He paints in order to take photographs and distribute his works under a psedonym, over a platform that has no reality with regards to his location, whilst the images are being viewed by hundreds of thousands of people all over the world, out of context or reality.