WC Graffiti

Katrin Fischer came up with the idea to turn her fascination for graffiti in public toilets into a rather unusual masters' thesis and spent the next eight months analyzing the communication processes at work on the walls of the ladies' toilets in the main building at the University of Bonn.

The 31-year-old linguistics student from Bonn sees public toilets as more than just a facility to be used when needs must. She also sees them as a kind of forum in which women can discuss topics such as religion, love, relationships and fellow students.

"My boyfriend beats me. What shall I do?" Responses to this question vary from "Hit him back" to "Don't provoke him then."

One of Fischer's graffiti samples, a message about veganism, attracted 60 responses, and she found that some discussions even cover the whole of a wall in a toilet cubicle. But lavatories are a forum with a difference: there are no rules, meaning that nothing is off limits – in fact, the only censure is that exercised by other users.

There is also no way of tracing the author, unlike in internet forums, where supposedly anonymous authors can actually be identified from their IP address if necessary.

"The absolute anonymity encourages women to write down whatever comes into their mind," said Fischer.

Some users even adopt a male identity and simulate lonely hearts ads replete with contact details.

"Gender and identity can be swapped in the absolute anonymity," said Fischer. "Women uninhibitedly show up male students by acting as male authors, writing messages such as 'Looking for…' and advertising sex, even giving out mobile telephone numbers. The men concerned never see the graffiti and cannot defend themselves."

Graffiti reveals artists' traits

In her 165-page long analysis of 'latrine literature,' Fischer analyzes 122 samples of graffiti, investigating what they say about topics such as gender, identity, space and power. She comes to the conclusion that there are two distinct types of female graffitists: one is very polite, objective and allows others the freedom to have their own opinions, whilst the other type is affective, vulgar and dominant.

The latter type express their dominance by such means as taking up a large amount of space and depriving others of it; circling their own messages to give them prominence; and crossing out or correcting the contributions of others, thereby empowering themselves by exercising censure. Where one user had originally written "Suicidal join the army," for example, another user crossed out "suicidal" and wrote "Jesus gives new life to all," enclosing this new message in a heart-shaped bubble.

A unique study

The study of the graffiti scrawled on walls in public toilets has, until now, largely been the domain of collectors, psychologists, sexologists and educationalists, making Fischer's thesis, which focuses on graffiti as both communication and vandalism, the first of its kind. As a result, Fischer's supervisor, Dr. Gisela Fehrmann, immediately agreed to her rather unique topic proposal.

"My professor was really enthusiastic about my idea," said Fischer. "And she asked me for a concept straight away. As everybody is familiar with the phenomenon, she thought it was a good thing to research and found the idea very funny. Just like my fellow students!"

But whilst Fischer's thesis is undoubtedly original, the practice of graffiti in lavatories is by no means a new phenomenon.

"Even the Romans used to do it," said Fischer. "And they were particularly crude: they used to describe their lovers right down to the last detail."

The letter of the law

Although Fischer is fascinated by graffiti, she also recognizes that it is illegal because whilst interesting and entertaining, it ultimately remains damage to property.

But she couldn't help feeling a little sad when university directors decided to paint over the graffiti last summer (thankfully she had already photographed her samples).

This decision also resulted in disappointment among users of the conveniences: one asked: "Where has all the graffiti gone?" Another pleaded "please write something, it is so boring here."

Recently, after news of the topic of Fischer's thesis had made the rounds in the university, a new graffito appeared, in which the author said that she also wanted to be included in a master's thesis!

Despite working on the subject for eight months, Fischer's interest in the subject is far from exhausted.

"I can't completely stop photographing sayings, but I no longer start to categorize them."

The results of Katrin Fischer's findings are on display at the University of Bonn's Institute of Communication Science until October 20, 2009.

Author: Michelle Martin
Editor: Rob Turner