This weekend saw the final unveiling of the the See No Evil project in Bristol; Europe’s largest street art exhibition. It is, to say the very least, an extraordinary, breathtaking achievement. Graffiti artists not just from Bristol but around the globe descended on Nelson Street, transforming the whole area from drab, urban decay into what feels like a new – almost virtual – space. It is truly something that needs to be experienced, but hopefully some of the photos I grabbed (along with the many on the official Flickr page) will give you some idea of its scale and raw beauty.

My own interest in graffiti art dates back to my first introduction to hip-hop culture in the mid 1980s, when the first images of New York subway art started to make their way over the pond. Apart from their raw visceral energy, both art-forms struck me as intensely science-fictional. Both are about the appropriation of technology to create something new – hip-hop taking samplers and turntables to generate new sounds they weren’t designed to make, and graf taking car repair paint and the very architecture of cities to create new visual spaces and canvases. They are, perhaps, the most literal expression of William Gibson’s famous cyberpunk-defining phrase ‘the street finds it own use for things’.

Even before cyberpunk, the city has long been one of the defining settings of science fiction for those that dare to look beyond the standard tropes of spaceships and alien worlds. Science fiction frequently views the city as a machine, with those of us that live within it variably as components, parasites or even unwilling prisoners. Graffiti becomes one of the most visceral, immediate statements of rebellion for us urban inmates; a bold, organic riot of colour against our drab, sterile prison.

The science fictional aspect of See No Evil becomes even more heightened when you consider the history of Nelson Street. It is yet another example, amongst the hundreds that dot the urban landscape of Britain, of 1950/60s post war planning and architecture that aimed to herald a new, futuristic, technology-driven utopia. But of course the future’s greatest strength is that it can never be predicted and tamed, let alone designed or planned. The town planners and architects failed, and as the decades passed they watched their dreams descend into decay, shunned by popular taste and left to become associated with poverty, depravation and failure. And to add the ultimate insult to their injuries, they saw their utopian designs become the defining science fiction image of a dystopian future.

“The group of architects who put (the plan) forward combined super highways with dreaming notions of pedestrian decks to create squares of Venetian splendour where Bristolians would gather in their thousands on election nights six metres above the smoothly uninterrupted flow of traffic.

“The major central area civic contribution of the sixties was the complex of pedestrian decks that survive in truncated form above the street at Lewins Mead and beyond and which virtually nobody uses. This was to be the essential link between the Centre – or even Forum’s great piazza above it – and the Broadmead shopping centre and beyond.”

The Fight for Bristol (ed. by Gordon Priest and Pamela Cobb; Redcliffe Press, 1980)

It’s this idea that was the driving force behind the story that leads my collection Paintwork; the use of graffiti to reclaim the space in which we live from corporate control. The technology that is subverted in Paintwork may be far more exotic – augmented reality, nanotechnology and QR Codes – but walking around Nelson Street made me feel that somehow I had actually managed to catch a little taste of Bristol’s zeitgeist with that story. That part of town usually feels dead and deserted, but on Saturday it was rammed with bodies – Bristol residents that had come out to be enthralled and entertained; to reclaim this urban decay for their own expression and enjoyment. And the fact that this was an officially organised event, done with the guidance and support of the same city that once made the mistake of trying to guess and plan the future is not only exciting in itself, but perhaps shows us a fleeting glimpse of a real, achievable urban utopia.

Paintwork is out now – you can get Kindle versions from Amazon US and Amazon UK, and versions for all other popular e-readers (including iPad and Nook) at Smashwords.

Print versions are now available from Createspace or Amazon US and Amazon UK.

It had been far too long since the last time I made it down to Bristol’s live graffiti night Weapon of Choice, so last night I actually managed to get off my backside and represent. King Audel & Dirty30 were the resident live painters for the night, with music provided by – amongst others – Asaviour & DJ IQ and light hearted Bristol hip-hop crew Hairy Parents. If you haven’t heard of the latter then you need to go hit that link and check them out now – clearly UK rap needs more West Country accents to survive.

Sadly I had to leave before midnight due to old-sodness, so I didn’t see the final result of the painting, but I did manage to grab a few shots of the work in progress – see below, plus lots more on my Facebook album. Props again to the WoC for hosting a great night, and a reminder that if you’re ever in the area and have even a passing interest in graf or hip hop you owe yourself to get down there and check it out.

Following on from last week’s Weapon of Choice post, I’ve been spending some time this morning chatting with Bristol graf legend and one time Banksy collaborator Jer “Lokey” Forceone. Top geezer. Plus he’s kindly said I can share his Flickr page with you guys, so you can check out some more of his work. Enjoy.

Props Lokey!

Got out and about last night – dropped into “Weapon of Choice” – a live graffiti jam at Mr Wolf’s – a little bar here in Bristol. Couple of drinks, some nice beats and some, erm, entertaining rhymes from Nerdcore rapper MC Nucleuz – all whilst local graf talent Lokey and Cheo busied away making some art. Originally headed down there under the premiss of doing research for a short story I’m writing about near-future AR graf artists, but ended up having too much of a laugh to care about all that. Did fire off a whole bunch of photos though, so check the links below or hit the Flickr slideshow for even more…