Dazed Digital: When and why did you first start stenciling?
Blek le Rat: The first time I saw graffiti in my life was in 1971 in NYC. It was a real shock to me and at the time no real information or explanation of what it was. It took me 10 years to digest the images and start doing my own. It seemed anachronistic to paint the French subway in NYC styles, because it looks so different. So, I came up with my own technique and remembered seeing a stenciled portrait of Mussolini amongst some WWII ruins during a trip to Italy and decided to start from that. I started in 1981 in Paris' 14th arrondissement. My first was a life size silhouette, like a shadow of a rat running along the streets.

DD: What were some of your first pieces? And what were people's reactions to them were?
BLR: I stenciled the rat for two years – on New Years' Day 1983 I went and stenciled hundreds of them on the walls of the Centre Beaubourg. After that, people started looking for me, the 'guy who did the rats', and then that summer I came across the first stencil graffiti done by someone else. This guy called TNT painted a bat next to my work. We had established a dialogue entirely anonymously.

DD: You've been doing this for two decades. Has your work, attitudes and graffiti itself changed in that time?
BLR: My work has a more serious context than before. Last year I pasted hundreds of posters around Paris of Florence Aubenas, a French journalist who was kidnapped in Iraq. I wanted to provoke a reaction from politicians and journalists in order to aid her release and, after the media lost initial interest for people not to forget. When I was pasting the posters up people stopped their cars to applaud. It was the first time in my life as an urban artist that I got such warm and supporting reactions. It made me realise that even if what you do is classed as 'anti-social', as long as you are doing something that touches people, you will be supported. Unlike a simple "Fuck The Police" I don't want to aggress people with messages that come across my images. I prefer people to make up their own stories using my characters - the engendered poetry of an image depends on its environment, the same sheep painted under the road sign for Rue Saint Exupery appearing in front of a cinema will be seen in completely different ways. Those who spot the first will enjoy the private joke between the sheep and St. Exupéry's masterpiece "The Little Prince" whereas the latter sheep will probably be seen as a line of sheep waiting for a film.
 
DD: So, can you see a difference reflected in writers in different cities around the world according to their environments?
BLR: I am not an expert in the styles of writers but at the moment American culture is so strong it is impossible to avoid. So, sure artists around the world adopt their own styles and techniques but American graffiti is dominant everywhere.

DD: It has already moved off the streets and into galleries, but the styles and ideas, although changing have essentially remained the same. Do you see advances in technology or communication affecting such a simple medium?
BLR: Street art started forty years ago and today I doubt there is any town in the world without graffiti. The way I see it, the Internet is just another wall - you leave an image in view, knowing that the next day thousands of people will see and react to your work, only this time on a screen rather than bricks.

DD: Can you tell us a few new graffiti artists whose work you find interesting?
BLR: Swoon in NYC does incredible work, as does Banksy in his spectacular way of leaving huge and strong images in surprising places. But there is a woman from Berlin, The Infamous Linda whose work really touches me. She pastes up posters telling a man who left her, "I will wait here at the bar every Saturday and Tuesday evening, waiting for you... Please come." An ongoing tale of stalking, drama and desperation – I love it. http://www.flickr.com/photos/
miromi/108111757/