Web App Tracks Graffiti Artists In Urban Areas, Popular Neighborhoods To Tag
By Chuck Sudo in Arts & Entertainment on Mar 6, 2012 9:50PM
Before he started the Gothamist network with Jen Chung, Jake Dobkin was, and still is, a noted photographer of street art.
Dobkin has created a project called Grafrank, where he's developed lists of graffiti artists (via sources like Flickr) and coded them onto maps highlighting where notable taggers are working in specific cities, their prolificacy, and the more popular areas artists are tagging. Here's Chicago's Grafrank.
Since this project is still in its infancy, Dobkin allows there's a wide margin for error. Via Gchat this morning, he told me the accuracy of his results isn't clear. There's a major dropoff in usable numbers and tags when one clicks on a graffiti artist's name, after the top of the list. (Some of the results that show up in a search are also NSFW.)
Dobkin is hoping people contact him with more information to help produce more accurate search results. He also plans on widening his photo searches to include programs like Instagram, which should help widen and refine artist-specific searches. Feel free to contact him via email.