By analyzing street art as a form of site-specific literacy, it was initially assumed that the memory and percpetion of the work would rely heavily on the place of the work as well. This was based on a statement made my Tracey Bowen in "Reading Gestures and Reading Code",           

"Reading graffiti is embodied within the performance of bearing witness to another’s existence as well as reading texts that present information through visual codes within the ever-changing contexts where they are found." (Bowen 85)

What I began finding, is that the artifacts of murals in Spanish Harlem seem to exist in a perceived realm,  where knowledge and perception corresponds more to memory, though not necessarily specifically location. This leads to a disjointedness in the realm that the mural materialized in the community.

For example, of the artists that were interviewed, (Edwin Perez, Marco DImas, and Chico), few had any memory of where the murals they had painted in the past were located, downplaying the importance of place in the works themsleves. Additionally, these artists tended to look at some of their earlier works in the realm of graffiti, whereas more recent commisioned works were recognized as separate entities altogether. 

I decided to include a layer for site specific commentary where people interacting with the materiality of the murals and their immediate environment were asked to comment on the works and how they viewed them. Few people who actually intereacted with the murals had any idea who painted them or how long they had been there- marking a sort of distinction between individual perception of murals and the more public place space these works tend to take. For example withthe mural of Puerto Rico on 117th st and 3rd ave., the only commentary bystanders could offer was that it was painted in September.

This disparity in dialogue can also clearly be seen with the students on 106th st and Park ave. who interact with the murals on their school grounds everyday but have little idea as to where they come from while Edwin Perez recognized the mural not from its location but rather because he was aquainted with people who painted it.

In addition, many stores that occupy the buildings that have murals either had no idea who painted them or had permitted their paintings in the first place. The sotre hosting "Dos Alas", for example didn't know anything about the mural, but Ulysses from the window shop on 106th st. and Lexington ave. was well aquainted with Manny Vega as they, as tenants, had permitted the mural to be painted from the beginning.

My point is that placing something on a map intrinsically ties some importance to its location, but cartographic representation is useful in this case for showing disparities between the percieved spaces that these works occupy, and different layers of community these works exist in. This allows for a logistical shift  between using mapping to show commonality between data, and using cartographic space to illustrate the disparate realms in which something exists- or rather the incongruity of an idea.