NY weather remains cold/rainy/crappy on the streets still but we actually saw a Street Art tour guide plodding through Williamsburg yesterday pointing out Os Gemeos, El Sol 25, Mr. Toll, and COST paste-ups and telling stories about “beefs” to a handful of cellphone snapping Street Art fans, so Spring must be coming!

By the way, in case you were interested, “The Splasher” identity apparently applies to anyone who splashes paint anywhere today. Remember that dude who was the first “Splasher” and who enlivened many a PBR cocktail party conversation in the late two thousandzies? Remember the outraged manifestos about Street Art years ago – weren’t those wheat-pasted with shards of broken glass? Did he move on to other things? Teaching art therapy? Training sea lions? People magazine should do a “where are they now” story about “The Splasher” right?

Here’s our weekly interview of the street, this week featuring Bast, Blacksheep, Centrifuge, Daan, FRYMS, Hellbent, JM, Joe Iurato, Matthew Deston Burrows, Meer Sau, ND’A, Olek, Saane, Skount, and Young and Sick.

Top image > Joe Iurato (photo © Jaime Rojo)

OLEK (photo © Jaime Rojo)

ND’A (photo © Jaime Rojo)

ND’A (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Meer Sau. “Real World”. Salzburg, Austria. (photo Meer Sau)

A lot of advertisers have used QR codes on the street to guide you to more “content” if you simply scan them off the poster or billboard with your cellphone. That’s exactly where Street Artist Meer Sau hopes to meet people in this new conceptual piece on the street that ponders how everyday life is completely infiltrated by digital, and how it’s winning our attention from the physical. “I often catch myself walking around and just looking at my f-ing smartphone, checking office mails, typing text messages or just seeing what´s new…instead of keeping my eyes open for the real world – the weather, the people around me, nature …  simply everything,” explains Sau.

“But when I raise my eyes I just see everyone else is doing the same thing – especially the youth – Sitting next to each other, not talking to each other, but using Facebook to contact each other. They are hunting “likes” and judging their friends by their popularity on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram and so on. I’m interested in seeing how far this is gonna go. Actually, I don´t wanna know.” – Meer Sau

Young and Sick (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Skount “Empty Salvation” Amsterdam, The Netherlands. (photo © Skount)

Skount with Daaan and Saane. “Masks”. Den Haag, The Netherlads. (photo © Skount)