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Short abstract:

Removing graffiti from the city surfaces is commonplace for decades. Usually considered as a straightforward operation consisting in maintaining public order, removing graffiti instead requires care, intimate gestures and skilled techniques in front of building facades.

Long abstract:

Urban environments are composed of various surfaces that display inscriptions, some of which being unofficial and unauthorized. Qualified as defacements that disrupt the sociomaterial order of city, these inscriptions are regularly removed as part of graffiti removal municipal programs. Usually considered as a straightforward operation consisting in maintaining public order, removing graffiti instead requires care and intimate gestures. To illustrate that, furthering some research in maintenance and repair studies (Jackson 2014; Denis and Pontille 2015; Domínguez Rubio 2016), I will investigate graffiti removal interventions in Paris, and emphasize three main aspects. First, a matter of attention, each removal intervention starts with two subtle, crucial gestures: staring at the graffitied surface and touching it carefully. These gestures cultivate a “sensual knowledge” (Dant 2010) of the city surfaces and of their material fragilities. Second, the concrete handling of the removal techniques goes through the uncertain exploration of an “ecology of materials” (Ingold, 2012) during which the graffitied surface and the workers’ body can be lastingly affected. Maintaining the facades of Paris graffiti-free is a matter of tempo and accuracy that goes through a delicate choreography. Third, removing graffiti not only means sensing surfaces, but also making ontological differences among material entanglements. It consists in separating the graffiti from its inscription surface by navigating a variety of substances whose properties, agency and interaction are experienced in the course of the intervention. Unpredictable, the result can be a (partial) success or a failure. In any case, removing graffiti is always transformative.