When we meet, he is ankle deep in cut-out letters, spraymount and a scattering of UK election campaign propaganda. He’s recently finished a two-storey high paste up outside Shoreditch’s Cordy House in support of the Robin Hood Tax – a simple suggestion whereby .05% of profits made by big business gets allocated to social services and charities. To erect the behemoth on brick, it took one scissor-lift, twelve hours and a sea of paper and paste.

“So this is where the magic happens?” I ask.

“Hardly. I don’t really work like that.”

Known for altering a billboard of Amy Winehouse with the words “I hear Duffy’s selling coke” and likening Tony Blair to Darth Vader this most unlikely graffito is unconvinced of his status as a street artist.

“Artists lock themselves up in studios and create something from nothing. I drive past a billboard and think up gag lines. I have a quiet chuckle and I come here and knock something up”.

It doesn’t take long.

“I drove past a nice low billboard advertising the UK Independence Party on the M4. I got some paint and parked up a lay-by. Walked – in the rain – and painted ‘Kilroy Silk Woz Ere’ then fucked off.”

You can probably see it as you land at Heathrow.

“I work on my own. So I’m carting along ladders, buckets, paper, everything. And a camera. It’s not that I don’t have any friends – though that’s true too. Just that nobody I know fancies heading out at three in the morning in the London piss to put posters up.”

My first encounter with Dr D was thru an East End billboard reading “HMP London / Open Prison / I.D. must be carried at all times”. At the top right third was “dr.d”. Being an anorak of the vandal variety, seeing someone new sparks the curiosity. Seeing someone good sparks inspiration.

There were rumours. Questions over Dr.D’s identity, gender, even whether Dr.D was a group or an individual. The same sort of buzz that surrounds any really successful vandal who hides under a pseudonym. But Dr. D was no Banksy. There wasn’t a constructed mystery wrapped up in a commercial venture. You had billboards, and you had the occasional poster knocked up for sale for a tenner at a group show. Whoever Dr. D was, they or he weren’t in it for fame or money.

I found more and more billboards doctored with a laconic back-of-the-class-with-a-peashooter wit. Evening Standard street displays that weren’t all they seemed. The Olympic rings with blood spattered on them reading “Made in China”. Police adverts changed from “Make a Visible Difference” to “Make a Risible Difference”. Dr.D was tipping the axis of how I viewed the streets of London by a few degrees. His humour was no different to me scrawling on toilet doors but D was scrawling on the walls of a bigger bog.

This glue-stained scarlet pimpernel is, in my eyes, delivering overtly political messages with the aim of encouraging people who see his work to rethink their socio-political spaces. He’s less convinced.

“You say it’s political, but I’d rather let the paper do the talking. I’m more of a piss-taker and a chancer. Politics and politicians are asking for it. They spend thousands on campaign posters begging for votes to get a job in Parliament. But they way they put themselves forward is totally laughable.”

The last time he was caught by the long arm of the law, he was customising a then-new David Cameron “Year for Change” poster.

“Must’ve been a pretty sharp copper because I was there in full hi-vis, all the kit and all the gear to make it look as if I’d been working. But he obviously spotted something that wasn’t right – the fact that that poster had been up for a few days. He came over, had a word and well… most of what I was trying to put up is in that pile over there.” He indicates towards a smattering of letters on a counter.

When he’s not covered in paper and glue, slipping under police radar he’s “a rat catcher. And if you bought any burgers out of a burger van in the East End in the mid-90s, you probably bought them off me. Not that the rats or burgers are connected.”

I tell him that he doesn’t make life easy for himself. Is there a Mrs. D? “Who’s to say I’m not Mrs. D?” And where did the name come from? “It’s an old DJ name. Works nicely these days because Dr. D can also scan as ‘doctored’.”

I’m taken to an alleyway behind his surgery. Stencils litter the earth floor and he picks up one of a cut-out man like the ones you see indicating the men’s loos. Beneath are the letters WC.

“It’s World Corruption. I put a few of these up in the Foundry toilets in Old Street on copies of the Financial Times. I’m experimenting a bit more with stencil and lettering. My dad was a typesetter so I suppose that’s where my obsession with letters comes from. Oh…and an old art teacher knocked my grade down when I made a piece that spelled “magic” with a “k”. The national curriculum in this country seems to say that you can’t make good art unless it’s spelled right.”

He’s reluctant to push himself as ‘the next big thing’ but walks about his studio with a quiet confidence. He makes good work that makes people laugh…and then think. As unassumingly humble as he is, he says the best feeling is when artists say he’s done something that’s influenced them.

“I find it weird when I’m asked where I think my art will go because I don’t see myself as an artist. I wish I was. I wish I could paint and draw freehand but I can’t – the closest I’ve been to being an artist is living in a squat with artists.

I got into paste-ups after reading Naomi Klein’s No Logo and was shown the work that Ron English does with pop culture and billboards. Those two ideas came together and Dr. D was born – it’s a low skill way of expressing myself. Nobody else does it like me because it’s stupidly complicated, hugely inconvenient and a ball-ache. It’s a long way to go for a bit of a chuckle.

What I do is a problem-solving exercise that comes out of pragmatic laziness. How can I adapt a board to say something in the easiest possible way? The logistics is what influences how the final piece looks.

What makes me different is not just the scale of what I do but the fact that it’s not my job. We all know artists who are under personal pressure to create, to come up with something new. They spend hours crafting, devising et cetera. I don’t. I see a billboard and think of ways of making it funny. Or I pick up on funny things my friends say.”

Dr. D’s stock in the street art world seems to have risen. In reputation at least. One of the outfits he works with recently told me that D is their “golden boy…does the best stuff around.” Asked about this, the doctor hesitates.

“Sometimes I wish the guys who could paint, the ones I’m secretly jealous of, had more of a message that comes out in their work. Arty people are so…arty. I’ve hung shows where guys would turn up and not even have a screwdriver.

And a lot of street art people don’t really get what I do. I know I’ll never sell huge amounts and most of my work is off the streets within weeks. And it’s big so you can’t nick it. That makes me a non-commodity. I don’t push to sell limited edition canvases or prints because that’s not really what I’m about.

I think like an ad-man but I’m not promoting a product, I’m working for my own ends. And often times it’s just so I can drive past a board I’ve done and smile to myself.”

Most of what I have written is true. But I have changed some details to ensure the good doctor’s work can continue. The messages, the jokes, the subversion – all of that will stop if I let my lips loose. The need to keep D as anonymous as possible is greater than any truth I can offer you. As of now, the doctor is in.

===

This article was originally published in Who’s Jack Magazine, June 2010.

Its curators concede that words used in photography are also used in hunting. Capture. Shoot. Release. Like a hunter, a photographer either sneaks up on prey or chases after it. The strength in Walker Evans’ composition lies not only in a clever use of thirds, but in his covert methods. Nobody knows their photos are being taken candidly. Yale Joel photographed people as they arranged themselves in a one-way mirror – spying on people going about the everyday and capturing them at their most vain. Some people made a television programme based on that idea, franchised it and called it Big Brother.

Exposed is an intelligent and informed show. Everywhere you go in the exhibition, you cannot escape what artyfarts call “the gaze”. If you feel dirty viewing Gilles Peress’ images of the Rwandan Genocide, you should. If you’re captivated by Merry Alpern’s sneaked shots through a bordello’s window, brilliant. The show is showcasing the theft of privacy and questions the basic notion of privacy. You should walk out of it feeling like a thieving pervert. What steals your soul isn’t the act of photography, but consuming the image and walking away without considering it. You ask yourself at what point does nosiness and prying become art? At what point does the documentation of death and oppression become pornography?

Surveillance is a “functional image taken with purposeful intent”. As you walk around the show, look up. Find one of the five million CCTV cameras in the UK gazing at you with impassive regard. Then see if you can view the show with your new, more complicit eyes.

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This article was first published in Juxtapoz Magazine, 28 May 2010. Click thru for the photos.

I don’t think I’m that thirsty….

A drinking game to play during the televised debates between Brown, Cameron and Clegg, on April 15th (ITV), April 22nd (Sky) & April 29th (BBC).

Here are the rules:

1) At the start of the game each player must pick a leader to support. After each question and debate section, the room must vote for a winner and a loser. The losers must drink three fingers of a drink pre-selected by the winners. In the event of a draw (hung parliament?!) all losers drink, even with a 3 way tie…

2) Drink one finger if the following key words or phrases are used:

• Fair
• Climate change
• Trust
• Broken Britain
• Broken Politics
• Immigration
• Referendum
• Economy
• Children
• Ordinary, decent, hard working
• Family

3) Finish your drink if any of the following occur:

• Anyone looks at the wrong camera
• Anyone is forcefully removed from the audience
• Anyone in the audience asks an unscripted question
• Gordon Brown admits to, himself or the government, making a mistake (“miscalculation” counts)

4) If the word “change” is used everyone must swap drinks and take one finger of your new beverage

5) a) If the speaker points their finger, whoever is sitting in the corresponding place in relation to the television must drink two fingers.
b) If the speaker nonchalantly waves their hand over the majority of the audience, everyone must drink two fingers.

6) If any leader uses the words “My friends,” spit out your drink and shout: “I’m not your friend!” at the television.

7) Should the audience start to clap, cheer, boo, hiss etc… (Of course they’re not allowed to) the entire room must finish their drinks in an act of rebellious solidarity.

8 ) If a leader goes over his allotted minute, begin to drink until the host stops him/them.

9) Likewise, if a leader fails to fill his minute, drink for the remainder (unlikely methinks!).

10) Anytime a leader uses slang or a popular culture reference to appear “down with the kids” the last person to agree with the point of order by shouting “Innit!” must down their drink.

11) Any obviously rehearsed bad play on words (e.g. “It’s not a manifesto FOR the people. It’s a manifesto FROM the people.” Dave Turner, 2010.) must be greeted by a universal groan and the drinking of one finger to forget.

12) Should Cameron be referred to as “Dave” by anyone on television, anyone with the name David must finish his or her drink.

13) Should someone interrupt (that’ll never happen) this is the cue for a game of waterfall. Everyone starts to down their drink, if the person closest to the television stops drinking, the person on their left is then allowed to stop drinking, then the person on their left and so on, until all have ceased consuming.

14) If the phrase “deep cuts” is used, karate chop the person to your left. The last person to administer a “deep cut” must finish their drink.

15) If the host calls for “order” the last person to bang their hand on the table and do likewise must finish their drink for rabble rousing.

16) If anyone says “cannabis” roll a fatty for the room. Salute Nick Clegg after every toke.

17) If anyone says ‘Obama” the last person to shout “Yes we can!” must consume one finger from everyone else’s drink.

18 ) If the “Bullingdon club” is mentioned, smash up the room. Leave a blank cheque to cover damages.

19) If Brown brings up the “playing fields of Eton,” the youngest member of the group must refill the rest of the group’s drinks for the remainder of the game.

20) If Thatcher is mentioned (or alluded to ‘3 million unemployed’ etc.), everyone takes two fingers from the person to their far right.

21) If anyone uses the phrase ‘The British People’, the room stands, toasts, and takes three fingers each.

22) If anyone uses the phrase ‘cross party consensus’, everyone pours half their drink into that of the person on their left, and finishes their own.

23) If any leader walks out of the debate (33-1 with Ladbrokes, other bookmakers are available) finish every drink in the house.

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It’s strange because although I really like them as people, I know they’re capable of better work than what’s being produced. I wish they’d shake the fear of being labeled political and actually embrace that element in their work – collage and montage offer a unique opportunity to sharpen an edge. As it stands, they’re aesthetically competent but lacking in venom. Something tells me their heart really isn’t into the street work but that they know they’re onto a good thing because it has proved commercially popular.

I also know the Miss Bugs isn’t exclusively what the collaboration do. One of them in particular likes to keep that work separate from the street scene. Work which draws from the ephemeral and landscape. But that’s all I’m allowed to say.

Am I one of those people who don’t rate things unless there’s a political text then when they have one, slate their lack of aesthetic?

Anyway. Here’s the piece.

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Photo courtesy Miss Bugs.

Fucking Waste of Money looks a bit like this:

They erected the picture on Thursday – the same day my erstwhile companjero, Sky News’ Niall Paterson, took these photos of the increasingly bizarre Peter Mandelson on the Labour campaign trail. [Thanks Niall...and apologies again re outing your campaign trail sleeping habits to Guido Fawkes].

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Pictures courtesy kennardphillipps and Niall Paterson. All rights reserved.

Of his latest stick ‘em up he’s said: “I never thought I could cram in a reference to WWII graffiti, a has-been chat show host and a suspect political party on one board but here it is. Not my best ever but worth a look….”

For more info on this most prolific of gentlemen: http://drd.nu/

“Film it. Present it. You can do it,” I think is what she said to me. My head was rushing with all sorts of fears based around fucking up.

A few months on and the taster for the film was selected for the Branchage Film Surgery session as part of the London Short Film Festival. Got some amazing feedback. James Mullighan and his surgeons took a potato peeler to my eyes and have given me a clearer idea of how I should take this project on.

Claire Lewis has agreed to Executive Produce my film. Less than a week after its taster was first screened.

I now need to find a cameraman with kit who believes in the project and is willing to work for deferred pay.

So I’m standing naked over the precipice but can see a nifty boutique at the other end.

Watch the taster here: Dirty White Gold

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Am a heartless bastard. Let me use this space to thank everyone who has helped so far (and has yet to be credited). This includes all at Pants to Poverty (inc Ben and Cecilia), all who attended the Branchage, those at the Frontline Club who’ve aided me so far (you know who you are), Mike Cupcake, those at Frith St with whom I share a space (again, you know who you are), Suzan Keen…lots more but I’ll save that for the Oscars speech I’ll give in the shower ok?

Seek and you shall find.

Baboon vs Badger…coming to a Christmas stocking or a sweaty uncle’s palm near you.

as featured on Queen’s Absolute Greatest album