With some frequency the Outpost receives security camera footage from Humboldters featuring folks engaged in alleged dastardly deeds of one sort of another. Generally we steer the amateur videographers toward law enforcement, as we did in this case, but it also dawned on us that these moving pictures might contain clues to an art mystery on maybe a handful of people’s minds. 

Click video to play. Problems on iPhone? Turn your phone sideways.

A business owner on Fourth Street in Eureka sent in the nighttime footage above which shows a couple of dudes — one who climbs the side of the video submitter’s building and another who seems to be snapping some street photography — up to, oh,  something. LoCO also received the following photos — one of the now scribbled-up section of building scaled in the clip and another of a graffiti’d up billboard located a couple hundred feet away. 

Probably not your particular cup of street art. But what if you knew that this was a traveling show of sorts? Eh? Less annoyed? No?

Graffiti aficionados will note the repeated presence of a pair of signatures, namely Skyrb and Reznor. LoCO will admit that we were not all that familiar with the pair’s previous compositions, but we were directed to #humboldtgraff on Instagram which seems to reveal that at least Skyrb has been busy ‘round these parts as of late. A sampling: 

OK, sure.

As for the other signature, some googling reveals that the city of New Orleans acted as the canvas for a tagger named “Reznor” over a several year period until NOPD caught someone they believed to be culprit. That individual was eventually released on the condition that he move back in with his parents, get a job and wear an ankle bracelet. Draaag. Did Reznor actually make the trip to Humboldt? Is this an homage? LoCO dunno. But digging deeper into Skryb’s personal Instagram (or here) would seem to reveal that he is on a cross-country spray can campaign of sorts. Recent tags are said to have been made in Seattle, Portland and SoCal. But, again, who can know?

Anyway, this concludes our little light dive into tagging hashtag culture. Did we learn anything? Oh, maybe it should be said that that business owner didn’t really love painting over your tag, Skryb. So, maybe don’t do that again.

Thanks. 

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UPDATE: Skryb’s Instagram account has been taken down.