A premier source for graffiti pictures, interviews and the most complete online graffiti supplies store, Bombing Science is a favorite site for all of us graffiti lovers. I recently had the opportunity to pose a few questions to Bombing Science founder, Fred.
When was Bombing Science first launched?
The first website was launched around 1998. It was then called Montreal-North Graffiti, as it documented graffiti in our part of town. I was posting mostly pictures of walls and bombings painted by our crew. I then began to take pictures in all parts of Montreal and, eventually, in other surrounding cities. At that point, I changed the name of the website to Bombing Science.
What was its mission at the time of its initial launch? And how has its mission evolved?
Back in ’98 when I first started the site, it was mostly to show the world what we were painting. But I then got deep into traveling and taking graffiti pictures all around the world. I’m now heading, in fact, to San Diego and Tijuana to take pics for the site! So, yeah, since the beginning, the goal was to give shine to graffiti artists through our site. And, of course, we now have an online graffiti supplies store. It was actually one of the first online graff stores. It’s grown a lot, and now our mission is also to provide the finest graffiti supplies to writers worldwide.
What about the name, Bombing Science?
Oh, I remember how I came up with this name! I was looking to register a domain name with the word “Bombing” in it, because it’s the element of graffiti we were pushing the most on the website. While I was looking for a name, I was listening to a drum’n’bass LP by the Ganja Krew, and one of the tunes was named “Science.” So I just put together Bombing and Science and that was it.
Your blog has evolved into one of the most popular and respected graffiti sites on the web. To what do you attribute its success?
Consistency, without a doubt. We are updating our site daily since 1998 with new graffiti pictures, and people are coming back for them. It’s a lot of hard work — updating a website on a daily basis for almost 20 years. But I think a lot of people enjoy the efforts we put into it.
What are some of the challenges involved with maintaining such a comprehensive blog?
I think the major challenge is to stay relevant in the Facebook and Instagram era. These sites killed the web. I mean, before. there were tons of graffiti sites all around the world with people putting work in their blogs — having something to say, something to show. Now people are scrolling down their feeds and they rarely go out of them. I find it kind of sad, because the web was a huge DIY place, and now most people only post pictures and content on social media sites. Remember, kids: you don’t own these sites. If you want to be an OWNER and a DOER, create your own thing. Don’t rely on social media. You don’t own shit when you post on Facebook. You don’t even own your followers. These large companies decide who gets to see your posts and ask you to pay to have it seen by the rest of your “followers.” More power to you for running StreetArtNYC! So, yeah, the challenge is to keep it going for another 20 years, without falling into the easy traps, keeping our integrity and improving along the way.
Interview by Lois Stavsky; photos courtesy Bombing Science
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