Tag: Name Writing in Public Space.
The program for this new Tag Conference covers again a wide range of approaches to name-writing, from the Renaissance-era marks of Antonio Bosio to the latest developments in graffiti letterforms in China.

Speakers will look into forgotten chapters of European tagging lore from the 1980s, explore the carved names from Romantic-era tourists on exotic monuments, and share different takes on tag-inspired contemporary art practice.

A special focus is laid on Austria, from the pioneering tags of Kyselak to the local evolution of contemporary graffiti.

THURSDAY 16
Opening

10am
Ilaria Hoppe (AT) & Javier Abarca (ES)

Panel: Contemporary graffiti

10:15am
Stefan Wogrin (AT)
«The history of tagging and name-writing in Vienna»

11am
Tobias Barenthin (SE)
«Toy Co. and the magic loop, Stockholm styles before Bando»

11:45am
Pablo Summer (AT)
«Snapshots from the history of graffiti in Steyr, Linz and Upper Austria»

12:15am
Marta R. Bisceglia and Adriana Iezzi (IT)
«Chinese characters and calligraphy in contemporary Chinese graffiti»

Lunch break

1—2pm

Panel: Art from tagging

2pm
Rich Keville (AU)
«X as a semiotic device: tracing calligraphic painting interventions on trains and walls in Italy»

2:30pm
Benjamin Rubloff (US)
«Ciphers: traces in the city»

3:15pm
Tofa (AT)
«Concrete tagging»

Coffee break

4—4:30pm

Closing talks

4:30pm
Orestis Pangalos (GR)
«Applied tag imagery: the signifiers of graffiti iconography in marketing, advertisements, package labeling and other cases»

5:15pm
Javier Abarca (ES)
«Unearthing the lost legacy of Muelle and the ‘flecheros’ from 1980s Madrid»

FRIDAY 17
Panel: History

10am
Egidio Emiliano Bianco (IT)
«Antonio Bosio and the curious case of a 1500s ‘heaven spot’ in the Catacombs of Rome»

10:45am
Julian Windisch (DE)
«“I was here!—No, I made it!” Uncovering 500 years of school graffiti at the Maulbronn Monastery»

11:30am
Hania El Houry (DE)
«Traveller inscriptions along the Nile in the 19th and early 20th centuries»

12:15pm
Gabriele Goffriller (AT)
«“…a club of Kyselak fanatics who trade maps of where they’ve found his work”»

Lunch break

1—2pm

Closing talk

2pm
Edward Birzin (US)
«Caine–I, free for eternity»

City walk

4—7pm
Sabine Sinzinger (AT)
Public restroom tour of Linz

Access to the conference is free.

For more information: https://thetagconference.com