ABSTRACT

Between April and September 2013, a series of graffiti artworks appeared on the streets of Glasgow. Headed by pixelated emoticons (the typographical representations of facial expressions used to convey emotion or tone in electronic correspondence), the anthropomorphic graffiti-figures bemoan their existence through selective quotation from Hamlet (Figure 25.1), posing questions to passers-by about “the fragmentation of complex emotions as they pass through technology” (Drew 2013). As illegal street art, Peter Drew’s Hamlet Emoticons are constantly under threat of defacement and removal; this transient status poignantly reflects the instability of the Shakespearean text that is both inspiration for the graffiti and their cultural reference.