Digital archive for murals

Digital Planet
Tim Jokl
BBC World Service

A nod to Picasso on the Falls Road in Belfast that could soon be reworked in to a 'hyper mural' digital mash up.

The Falls Road, West Belfast, is a mainly Catholic area and is just a few hundred metres south of the Shankhill Road, a largely Protestant area.

It became an place infamous for marches and conflict, violence and divide. But this area is also famous for something else.

Hundreds of vivid murals cover just about every expanse of wall around these neighbourhoods with giant paintings adorning the ends of terraced houses.

Many, but by no means all, depict aspects of the sectarian struggle between Catholics and Protestants in the 1970s and '80s, serving as a constant, vibrant reminder of those times.

But there are other murals. One, for example, has a theme of the war in Palestine.

Murals as memorials

Another mural, which appeared just only a few weeks ago, is an angry reaction to the xenophobic hate mobs that recently attempted to drive immigrant families from their homes in Belfast.

Liam Moore, a design student attending the University of Ulster, has developed a special interest this public art.

"They're pretty inspirational," he told BBC World Service's Digital Planet programme. "There are lots of topics and themes.

"Belfast is a very artistic and creative city to be in. There's lots of poetry, there's lots of writing.

"If you think about the murals too, it's a big creative expression of sometimes political opinions and undertones. Especially from other cultures. A lot of residents feel they can connect to other divided nations, such as Israel and Palestine."

Hyper murals

Liam has been documenting the murals for a number of years, using digital technologies to capture and conserve them.

Since the murals often change or are painted over, his work has been about keeping a record. Making use of digital cameras has made it easier to preserve and share these works with the wider world.

Liam's own design work has been based broadly on this art he is actively preserving.

"I've begun creating new murals," he pointed out. "I take topics from the blogosphere and current media and reflect that through graphic design. Some of that work involves the murals.

"I have created new murals, collages and mish-mashed reformed murals."

Creativity out of conflict in Belfast

Liam calls these 'hyper-murals'. They are created by digitally capturing real life murals and then isolating and enhancing sections using image manipulating software. Using the resulting library of parts, he creates a sort of mural mash-up.

Liam described the process as, "Taking images that already existed, creating a story from them. It's like being four or five again, playing.'

Full circle

Given the murals can change so often, and without notice, it has been important to Liam to not only preserve them but to explain what a specific artist was trying to say, in a historical context and with the background of a changing society.

"It would be really nice to take existing murals, put them into a computer, digitally rearrange it, then put them back in a mural, sort of coming full-circle.

"That would be nice to see, what peoples' thoughts and comments were on them."