[LECTURE] Lecture 3 - Adam Evans

Adam Evans is a cultural theorist who specialises in Urban Design, he studied Architecture at the University of Greenwich for his undergraduate and at Kingston University for his Masters. Now he is the subject leader for History, Theory and Culture at the University of Central Lancashire. He is heavily influenced by all elements of hip hop culture; Rap, DJ, graffiti, beat-boxing and production. His presentation was split up into three separate parts, the History of hip hop, how hip hop was brought into the UK and how hip hop has influenced his practice.

Adam first explains about a series of events which he believes was the first start to hip hop- which was graffiti. He explains about how a troublesome character known as Robert Moses, a city planner based in New York had a vision; the vision was the bring money into Lower Manhattan. To do this, he had to bring people in from the suburbs, and to achieve this, he built the South-Bronx expressway through the suburbs and ghettos of lower Manhattan. Adam explains that because he built through their houses, Robert had to rebuild houses for these people to live, so became Charlotte Street, an area where the houses were built with no structure, randomly arranged with a complete disregard for the environment. Robert wanted to build on as much inhabitable space as possible. Soon a woman called Jane Jacobs put a stop to this and saves her neighborhood; Greenwich Village from being transformed by the developers.

After this, a new phenomenon grew which was people tagging walls. An unknown man known as Taki-183 had tagged a wall, and because of this it was published in newspapers and more and more of the public began to known his name. 183 was his street name, and soon more and more people wanted to get known just like him. By 1972, the impact of graffiti had become evident. Jon Naar had created a book showcasing graffiti in New York, and over a 14 day period he had already photographed over 200 photographs. Over time, Graffiti started to become fatter and more colourful, people started fighting for space and wanted to stand out more than the last person who tagged the wall. People then began to target moving vehicles, such as trains for tagging. Soon, people were tagging the whole train, which then became known as block buster graffiti.

Adam then moves onto how hip hop culture spread to the UK, he stated that “something very similar happened in 1984”. Channel 4 featured a documentary known as Style Wars, which show cased New York’s subway system as graffiti writer’s public playgrounds for them to express themselves. After this, people started to try it, and soon urban culture started emerging in various places in the UK. Adam then raises a question, “is it an urban culture, or is it counter culture?”

Adam then begins to discuss his research agenda, after his Masters he worked on a project known as Cabinet, 20 artists were asked by the Plymouth Museum to interoperate an object into art, and while he was in a taxidermy room he triggered a memory- and because of this he wanted to create a narrative collage from his experiences. This collage featured the Electro 10 cover, which featured the song ‘Johnny the Fox’, which he was listening to in his memory.

I wont delve too much into what else was said here, but I will explain how I have been influenced by his work during my research assignment at a later date.