> Are graffiti artists not part of the public?

In the same sense bike thieves are.

consent. same as the difference between a shower and getting caught out in the rain

I never consent to billboards.

majority of ppl voted for some party, a party that gave consent to place/allow billboards, so indirectly, you gave consent. In the graffity's case - even the ruling party didn't gave consent, it's that they don't have resources to penalize and clean this mess

That implies that there was a party available that would ban billboards. There isn't, so graffiti is a way of actually taking back agency over our public spaces by underrepresented counterculture. Deal with it.

> Deal with it.

Incentivizing violence? Bold strategy.

It's scribbles on the wall, it's hardly violence.

Painting a wall is not violence. That is an extremely pro-authoritarian, hyper-capitalist viewpoint that is useful for the state and the property-owning ruling classes to enforce their rule. It has no basis in fact. Painting a wall does zero harm. If you own a massive building that is not your home, you can afford to paint over it. You don't need to though, because it is used by members of the public, not you, so it's actually meaningless to you. It's not the same as if graffiti artists painted over the front of your house as a middle class person. So there is no reason for you to be mad for uber-rich people who do not care about you. Walls that are used by the public should be owned by the public, and by that logic we all have the right to paint it whenever we want to. Just as you could paint a wall in your house.

Most clasic graffiti to me look like trash left on the street, it doesn't convey the 'taking back of public space'. I like some graffiti concepts like in Berlin where ppl pay some artists to paint something over their building or some cool looking art on walls even when it's illegal/not approved (but would like to just go the approval way, or push for adding laws for such cases). But in the case of those random words/letters that maybe do have a meaning for some ppl - those are perceived by a lot of ppl just like trash, not a counterculture. Related to billboards- there are many places where cities do have a design code that basically forbids most of billboard types, esp in city center and it's not like you can't create your own party to push for this idea. If you don't gain votes, that means ppl are ok with billboards

Yes, you did.

Who are you to say what I consented to and what I did not?

Go deface them then.

The kids painting street art have no power to consent or not consent to anything. If they had access to art supplies, a loft, and a gallery, they'd probably use them.

Planning permission.

Permission is not remotely the same as legitimacy.

What does have billboard to do with ugly graffiti? They're not defacing billboards, are they?

Billboards are an ugly smear on the face of the urban environment, whose sole purpose is to enrich the owners of the billboard, and those that rent them.

The difference between billboards and graffiti is that one is “OK” and the other is not. But in neither case do we get a real choice.

I don’t think billboards have much political legitimacy at all, but there is lots of money behind them, so they’re probably here to stay.