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Language and Discourse – (ii) The Art of Occupying Space

The language acts of graffiti artists along the Berlin Mauer created a space that both expressed and inscribed their being into existence. As long as Western authorities regarded the Berlin Wall as a kind of "no-man's land", such anarchistic self creations remained tolerated.

The East Germans, on the other hand, kept their side of the wall in a sterile state, a blank and clean white slate just waiting to be written on. Across this pre-fabricated concrete whiteboard, the West waited for no-one’s invitation to write its indelible messages of freedom and democracy in invisible ink.