Scratched

Briefly describe your project in relation to the challenge prompt

Looking around our surroundings, a massive yet intricate mural was placed right outside of our workspace at UCSD. Enamored by its scale and color it adds to our campus, we were reminded just how underappreciated the art all around our community is. Specifically, street art and graffiti are unvalued and even negatively associated with crime, gang related activity, and poverty from the responses that we gathered from our survey. Of our participants, 24 out of 42 people say there is a difference between graffiti and street art. And when prompted, 20 out of 42 responses provided negative keywords such as “eyesore”, “thugs”, and “vandalism” for graffiti. However, most respondents recall experiences where they can appreciate its presence in our communities. With this in mind, street art and graffiti could potentially be used in a positive way to establish and strengthen the bonds of our communities all over with our concept we call, Scratched.

Describe your main design decisions and how they contribute to your product

Scratched is a collaborative art installation utilizing an app to allow its users to create, upload, and view murals that will be placed around the world. We believe that street art, while often looked down upon, can be used to connect cultures and people around the world. In order to do this, we plan to have digital murals placed in large cities, specifically tourist locations such as Paris, Tokyo, and Los Angeles.

From our app, users can then browse the different installations, before choosing one they wish to contribute to. Using the in-app drawing feature, users can either draw their own creations or upload artworks they have created elsewhere. The digital murals will then display and cycle between submissions just like an actual urban canvas wall, tagged with a bunch of street art. Scratched also includes several other features in order to promote community such as collaborative efforts to create a consistent body of work for a common theme towards a societal good or business sponsor. A prime example of this would be our mural installation in Paris be Olympic themed as the event approaches to create more exposure.

To promote inclusivity, the product displays art made by users that can be showcased. The “scratch” created is located in a city based on their selection. It promotes street creativity and inclusiveness by unifying people from different cities and cultures around the world. In cities where street art cannot be fully expressed, our product provides users the opportunity to create art and share it all around the world. It provides users a glimpse of how art enhances cities, fostering a deeper appreciation for street art and its role in adorning cities.