bumped into someone on my birthday. i was supposed to be enjoying myself at the cube, but a night based around fixed gear bikes was over-subscribed and we’d sauntered in too late. so we were wondering what to do with our night, when i caught someone putting up a sticker in the loos and we got talking. turns out we’d already spoken via email. odd how that happens these days.

it was the first dry night in about three weeks and he was a man with a mission, so i begged if we could tag along and off we went.

our van provided handy transport over to easton and he made us pull over in a dark corner of a car park, adjacent to the site of the pit pony pub, now a wasteland of rubble and walls. it has been in this state since it was knocked down and rumour was it might remain as a building site for some time to come, especially in the current economic climate. so our new friend, calling himself the fly [i must introduce myself to new people as the darkness, or something], planned to put something up on the few existing walls to draw attention to the devastation.

he squeezed through a gap in the perimeter fence and sculked round to the front. the site is set back from the road, but still highly visible and it wasn’t very late, about 9.30. plenty of cars and people passed by, seemingly without noticing him. he stuck a stencil of a huge fly on the wall and started spraying. in little time he had two of these big flies sprayed up and was squeezing back out of the grounds.

i asked him why big flies? he said he was trying to mess with people’s vision, seeing something that is supposed to be small and unobtrusive from a distance, a near/far thing. he uses the flies to draw attention to the abandoned rubbish in the city. that people use their community as a dumping ground and need to take responsibility for our surroundings. it looked like fun too. even in the dark they looked pretty good from the road.

and that was that. no going off round the city on a bombing mission. every fly attack is site specific. his work done, we set off to a nearby pub for beer. kinda happy to have missed the cube night now.

further info:
graffiti badges flickr account
thefly.biz