What do you think of graffiti?
I have returned to working on campus, in a ‘COVID-secure’ office, for the time being. The campus is not what it was, and the chaos and noise of students is very obviously missing. I’ve been in 22 days in total, and I have seen two people in corridors, and other than that, I am completely alone (I like being alone, don’t worry!).
I passed by an office today, and I spotted Kilroy graffiti had been left on a whiteboard – among floors and floors of empty blank offices. It stuck out, and it was incredibly comforting.
Allow me to explain:
‘Kilroy was ‘ere’ is a graffiti doodle of someone with an elongated nose poking over a wall, and well, so the theory goes, Kilroy was used as a sign by American troops in WW1 to confuse enemy troops and re-assure troops that arrived in the same space that they weren’t alone.
Kilroy often looks like this (you’re probably familiar with him):
There is a school of thought that all graffiti is communication of some kind, and it fits into a wider system of Saussure’s signs and signifiers (see here for a summary).
Although there’s some debate and opposing ideas, Kilroy was sketched and painted onto walls like a dog marking it’s territory, and just as with dogs that live together, it’s good to know that someone else in your pack has been there before.
So, when I spotted the Kilroy below through the windows of a deserted teaching room, it was so lovely to see that another human had, in fact, been there.
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