128 pages Edited by Javier Abarca, Susan Hansen, Edward Birzin 29.6 x 21 cm Language: English and German Paperback Publisher: Double-H Publishing First edition 2025
TAG Name Writing in Public Space: A Conference about Tagging, in History and Today brings together the world’s leading voices on name-writing, from its ancient roots to its place in contemporary culture.
This volume collects the presentations of the 2023 TAG Conference in Hamburg, the largest scientific gathering dedicated to tagging research to date. More than twenty scholars and practitioners from fourteen countries share insights into a practice as old as writing itself and as urgent as today’s urban landscapes.
From the legendary handstyles of OZ and SKENA in Hamburg, to underground infrastructures in Australia, anti-solidarity graffiti in Berlin, and contemporary tagging cultures in Tokyo, Vienna, and beyond, the reader highlights the diversity of contexts in which name-writing emerges. Alongside historical investigations, from Ancient Rome to “Kilroy was here”, contributors also explore the symbolic, aesthetic, and political dimensions of this most ephemeral of human marks.
Closing with participant biographies and impressions from the conference, this book is both a scholarly resource and a testament to the vitality of tagging as a global form of expression.
