Saturday, February 23, 2008

URBIS


"Funky City" 16x20, 24x30, 30x40

Art Type Open Edition Giclee or Canvas Wrap
Media Digital / Hand Signed

This piece is available in different sizes, visit MY STORE link for more details.

All rights reserved. ©2004 Valerio Ventura
Unauthorized duplication is a violation of applicable laws.


This piece is available in different sizes, visit MY STORE link for more details.

"The Lookout" 16x20, 24x30, 30x40
Art Type Open Edition Print or Canvas Wrap
Media Digital / Hand Signed

All rights reserved. ©2004 Valerio Ventura
Unauthorized duplication is a violation of applicable laws.


"No Bills" 24x30


"High Fifteen" 24x24


"Saw Kill" 24x30


"Spy" 24x24


"Circle" 24x24


"Sixty-Eight" 24x30

All the above are available on stretched canvas.
Wrapped around 1" 3/4 Douglas Fir Natural wood stretch bars.
Limited Edition of 100 hand signed
Printed with HP Latest technology Z3100 printer.
UV 200 years archival inks, 11 colors process on fine art archival canvas.

All rights reserved. Urbis ©2002 Valerio Ventura
Unauthorized duplication is a violation of applicable laws.


But what are these symbols? I spent five years going all over the country and some parts of Europe to photograph over five-thousand of these symbols and recorded the making of this project. Welcome to Urbis, what I call "Urban Archeology", a different way to look at our pavement.
The article below was published by wired magazine a couple of years after I had built a clothing line around these acronyms. The line is called EXIT, and you can find that on my clothing line web site. (exitbrand.us)

Urban Markup Language:

The next time you pound the pavement, keep your eyes
on the ground. You'll notice the curious spray-painted
markings, leaping lines, arrows, crosses, swooshes,
and strange acronyms that make up a form of street
graffiti that's actually on the street. What do these
weird tags mean? The runes augur the arrival of
jackhammers and backhoes. A few days before any
urban dig starts, an excavator marks up the designated
area, usually in white, and alerts the local underground
notification service center. The center puts out a call to
the telcos, electric companies, water-works and cable
outfits that subscribe to the service. The firms responds
by dispatching workers with spray cans to map buried
infrastructure. If you know the lingo, you can visualize
the dense architecture that sprawls beneath our streets.

The paint colors are fairly standard;
Red denotes power lines; yellow flags oil and gas; blue
is for fresh water; green indicates sewage; purple
highlights reclaimed H2O;
and orange tags communications or cable TV lines.

Some acronyms, like MCI or SBC, are obvious; others
aren't. IP, for example, means "iron pipe," and USA
stands for "underground service alert" the
aforementioned area slated for excavation).

by Erik Davis for WIRED Magazine, September 2004






Black Ink Pen. Color Inks, Acrylics on Copy paper
Photoshop: Compositing.
11x17, 22x34
All rights reserved. Urbis ©2002 Valerio Ventura
Unauthorized duplication is a violation of applicable laws.