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As the photos on his TXTual Healing website reveal, most messages (“Where's my other sock?”) lack lyricism. But Mr Notzold expects gravitas will come with time. “The more I can get out there and do this, the more people are going to text politically and socially charged material,” he suggests. His text-message graffiti system gives people a way to stay engaged, he believes, “instead of just plugging into games or music on the phone, and disconnecting from society.”
Digital graffiti can have commercial as well as political uses. This summer Britvic, a British soft-drinks company, ran a “Court on Camera” promotion at the Wimbledon tennis tournament. Consumers who were queuing for tickets were encouraged to send photos from their phones to a giant screen adorned with branding for its Robinsons line of soft drinks. “It became a form of co-branding, where the consumers stamped their identity on the event,” says Daniel Conti, Britvic's new-media manager. VIP tickets to the centre court were awarded to the senders of the best pictures.