Since 2002 (updated often), your old-school website for all things stencils. Photo, video, links, and exhibit info submissions always welcome. Enjoy and stay curious.

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36,000 year old stencils get world heritage status

'Prehistoric Sistine Chapel' gets world heritage status
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-27978440

A cave in southern France dubbed the "prehistoric Sistine Chapel" has been added to Unesco's World Heritage list.

The 1,000 drawings carved in the walls of the Decorated Cave of Pont d'Arc, or Grotte Chauvet, are 36,000 years old and include mammoths and hand prints.

Urban sensing - light poles have eyes, ears, etc. (Chicago)

Big Brother? Chicago to measure pedestrians' movements
by Jolie Lee

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/06/24/chicago-big-da…

By year's end, Chicago could have as many as 50 sensors attached to downtown light poles collecting data on everything from the humidity to air quality to the noise level.

The project, called "Array of Things," has the potential for far-reaching applications. For example, air quality data could help you navigate a route through the city that avoids pollution and allergens. Or traffic data could inform the city where best to install bike lines.

SF Banksy Tests Value of Street Art

Back when Banksy was in SF promoting his documentary, I got to meet Sami Sunchild and talk about the large rat that was on the side of her Red Vic bed and breakfast building (read about it). I introduced her to Banksy via my book as well as the artist's own. And her manager let me go onto the roof for exclusive shots of the socialist rat (see my photo below). Ever since I saw the empty space on that wall get replaced with plain wood by a work crew, I've wondered who took the rat and what it's fate was. At long last the SF Chronicle tracked the owner down. And Sami asked him to never sell it. End of story?

 

Quest to display an S.F. Banksy tests value of street art
By Evan Sernoffsky

June 20, 2014 | Updated: June 21, 2014 10:24pm

Art restorers in Santa Barbara began work last week on an unusual canvas: 10 graffiti-covered redwood boards that were ripped from the side of a Victorian home on Haight Street.

Spray-painted on the slats is a beret-wearing rat clutching a Magic Marker, the stenciled work of anonymous street art superstar Banksy, who tore through San Francisco in 2010.

Private collectors have extended six-figure bids for the piece. But a self-described "art freak" from San Francisco who owns it doesn't want to profit from the piece, and he says he can't without breaking a promise.

14 June: Public Provocations (DE)

http://www.colab-gallery.com/

Colab Gallery presents the sixth edition of PUBLIC PROVOCATIONS. It combines various styles, disciplines and techniques of Urban Art.

PUBLIC PROVOCATIONS is opening on Saturday, June 14th at 8 pm and we are looking forward to seeing you there!

-----------------------

Zur Ausstellungseröffnung am Samstag, den 14. Juni 2014 ab 20.00 Uhr, laden wir Sie herzlich ein.

Artists:
LOGAN HICKS (US) • SOBEKCIS (SRB)
DOME (DE) • SEBAS VELASCO (E)
LAURENCE VALLIERES (CAN) • SNIK (UK)
1010 (DE) • ROMAN KLONEK (DE) • EGS (FIN)

Schusterinsel 9
79576 Weil am Rhein - Friedlingen
Deutschland

Google Adds Graffiti to Its Art Portfolio

Google Adds Graffiti to Its Art Portfolio
By RACHEL DONADIO ::: JUNE 10, 2014

PARIS — There’s a portrait of an anonymous Chinese man chiseled into a wall in Shanghai, a colorful mural in Atlanta and black-and-white photographs of eyes that the French artist JR affixed to the houses of a hillside favela in Rio de Janeiro. These are among the images of more than 4,000 works included in a vast new online gallery of street art that Google is unveiling here on Tuesday.

Called the Street Art Project, the database was created by the company’s Paris-based Google Cultural Institute. Using images provided by cultural organizations worldwide, some of which were captured with Google’s Street View camera technology, it includes street art from around the globe, including work that no longer exists, like the 5Pointz murals in Long Island City, Queens, or the walls of the Tour Paris 13 tower in France.

wtf?! Robocop tech rolls through SF like a Dalek.

http://knightscope.com/

Sci-Fi movies have a remarkable way of freeing the mind to think through future possibilities. It is for that reason that I treated my team to opening day at the movies to see the remake of Robocop. The movie paints a vivid, albeit extremely dramatized, picture of how robotics might influence and redefine what lies ahead in public safety.

Knightscope is definitely a hot topic! Most recently, Gartner named Knightscope in its annual "Cool Vendors" report (Gartner Cool Vendors in Automotive, Thilo Koslowski, 9 April 2014). Plug and Play Tech Center selected Knightscope from over 350 start-ups as its Hottest Company for March 2014. And Knightscope’s previous awards include the Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce 2013 Award for Startup Company of the Year and Best of Show at the Plug and Play Winter Expo in December 2013. Knightscope was also featured at the LAUNCH Festival in San Francisco for a fireside chat with Jason Calacanis.

140 New Photos for the Stencil Archive

Thanks for the submissions! Artist and fan pics keep this project inspiring for me. Uploading tunes compliments of WWOZ and KVRX. Please support the Stencil Archive as well as public and college radio. Culture on the digital fringes!

Belgium (thanks Josiah)
http://www.stencilarchive.org/archives/index.php/Europe/Belgium

Germany (just one, thanks Cel)
http://www.stencilarchive.org/archives/index.php/Europe/Germany

France (thanks Josiah)
http://www.stencilarchive.org/archives/index.php/Europe/France

Netherlands (thanks Josiah)
http://www.stencilarchive.org/archives/index.php/Europe/Netherlands

Excessive Police Raid Due to Protest Graffiti (Vancouver)

http://warriorpublications.wordpress.com/2014/06/04/police-raid-house-i…

At around 9AM on June 3, 2014, approximately 16 cops from the Vancouver Police Department raided a house in East Vancouver under the pretext of investigating six mischief charges related to graffiti tags dating from June, July, and October of 2013. The four residents of the house, and one guest, were removed one by one by police aiming pistols at them. One person inside the house looked out their bedroom window and saw a cop pointing his pistol at him.

The house targeted by the raid is comprised of radicals involved in Indigenous resistance as well as anarchist projects in the city (including myself, the editor of the Warrior Publications wordpress site).

Once removed from the house, the five people were placed in a prisoner transport van parked out front while a K9 team entered the house to search for any remaining people. After the K9 team searched the house, a forensic identification unit with a video camera appeared. They first filmed the exterior of the house and the yard, then entered the house itself. After filming the interior, they then used a camera to take photos.