The Review

Issue date: 3/14/08 Section: Mosaic

Media Credit: ReGeneration.org This entry, submitted by Sarwar Khan of Montreal, Cananda, won best overall.

Looking at senior Ben Warheit's Facebook profile, one will see an assortment of graffiti artwork. One drawing features a detailed multi-colored landscape depicting a skyline, while another has a man with a lobster claw and the quote over him bearing, "What are you doing?"

These graffiti messages were drawn by Warheit for his friends, ranging from happy birthday messages through the drawings to inside jokes he shares with them.

"I figured the graffiti application was a great way to leave something visually nice for them rather than just a simple wall post," he says.

Facebook graffiti started out as a simple application that enables users to draw pictures on friends' walls, similar to the paint application that comes with computers. Graffiti has now become a phenomenon, with millions of Facebook users across the world adorning their friends' walls with colorful drawings of scenery, people and even abstract art.

The graffiti home page, which features the top art drawn by users around the world, has gone beyond a form of procrastination for college students to a platform for artists. A portrait of the late Heath Ledger is shown on the main page alongside a scene drawn from the film "Ratatouille" and a sunset on the beach. These intricate drawings grabbed the attention of Dell spokesman for environment communications Sean Donahue, who helped decide to use Facebook graffiti as a platform for a going-green concept contest sponsored by Dell.

"There are so many passionate and creative individuals out in the world that I saw through this graffiti application," Donahue says. "I wanted to be able to have contestants have a chance to express their views about the environment and going green and graffiti was a great way to do that."

The contest was sponsored by Dell's ReGeneration program, which is a global movement that was started by Dell chairman Michael Dell in committing to sustaining the world's natural environment. Graffiti applicants were to draw their ideas of what it meant to be "green" and submit for the public to vote. More than 7,000 applicants submitted artwork and one million votes were cast to award six winners from the United States, Canada, Sweden and Maldives. Winners received a 22-inch flat display monitor, which is energy efficient and green-friendly.

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