Cidade de riscos: notas etnográficas sobre pixação, adrenalina, morte e memória em São Paulo

Abstract

This article presents the tag graffiti (pixação) in São Paulo and describes how the taggers change the urban landscape. They are re-inventing the city. From an ethnographic point of view, it also discusses how this activity provides reflections on the ideas of risk, memory and death. The history of life and death of a particular tagger, famous for his will of daring, is what links the facts presented in here. It is shown how these young people put themselves in dangerous situations to be recognized and, in some way, to be remembered. The possibility of death, or its actual occurrence, connects two elements: risk and memory.