Journal Articles

Isaac, J. (2019). Pics or it didn’t happen: The artwork formerly known as heritage in Google Street Art. Convergence, 25(3), 374-392. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354856517714169

• Exploring Google Street Art through the lens of Melbourne, a city that has long negotiated with street art and graffiti as forms of cultural heritage, this article outlines the consequences of tangibility for the intangible artwork. It argues that any protection of intangible heritage requires a tacit acknowledgement of the subjectivity which surrounds its experience: those community reactions and responses whose wide variability help define that heritage as something intangible.

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Isaac, J. (2016). Situations of Encounter: Playful Gazes in Street Art deTours. Conjunctions. Transdisciplinary Journal of Cultural Participation, 3(1), 1-23. https://doi.org/10.7146/tjcp.v3i1.23648

• This paper outlines the implications of a final assessment project in a street art subject taught at the University of Melbourne. Relying on content from students, this website features a wide range of detours to argue in favor of playful participation’s academic benefits. Identifying street art’s encounter as a cinematic event, one that is simultaneously imaginative and personal, this paper posits audience empowerment as crucial to the study of street art. It concludes that the practice’s subjectivity, in addition to the performative aspects of its experience, necessitates street art’s creative engagement.