Street art — or to the out of touch, graffiti — is moving up.

Shortly after winning the struggle to be legitimized by critics and the general population, artists are already redefining the movement.

Graffiti is an art form old enough to be found in the Catacombs of Rome. For the last 40 years, it's been a medium relegated to abandoned buildings, boxcars and back alleys.

The last decade has seen guerilla artwork become more visible on the urban landscape. Its location is limited only by an artist's ingenuity and willingness to risk getting arrested. Because most artists would rather not spend time in jail, they have come to rely on the fastest methods of application: stencils, wheat pastes and stickers.

Wheat pastes are any paper, poster or collage stuck onto a building using flour paste.

These three dominant forms are already being outmoded by mutations in the movement. A seemingly endless array of new incantations defy categorization because of the infinite variety of ways they are created, the materials they are made with and the ways they are displayed.

When graffiti started appearing in the form of handwritten spray paint in Philadelphia and New York in the late '60s and early '70s, it had two essential purposes: marking gang territory and raising awareness. Today, most artists are focused on the latter.

The Horse Project, started by Portland-based artist Scott Wayne Indiana, utilizes small brass rings attached to sidewalks throughout the city. Before there were cars and way before there was spray paint, these rings were used to tie up horses while owners were off drinking themselves into legend.

Indiana explained that he started tying tiny spray-painted horses to the rings back in 2005, using the ponies as a way to bring attention to an aspect of the city's history that he believes people are unaware of or have forgotten completely.

"I am interested in street art to help wake the collective consciousness, which is so soundly sleeping at the moment, and has been since the dawn of man," Indiana said.

Mark Jenkins, working out of Brazil, uses a distinct process of making his sculptures out of packing tape that is familiar in shape, but without the finer details, ultimately lending them a creepy air. Jenkins makes everything from tiny babies and giant telephone receivers to giraffes and carousel horses.

His other project is a series of embedded people: clothed figures with their heads stuck in walls, their torsos disappearing into post office boxes and legs sticking straight out of garbage cans.

It started off pragmatically, but has since become engulfed in philosophical musings.

"At first, I just wanted to give my tape people and myself some fresh air," Jenkins said. "My flat/studio was really congested with tape fumes exhausting from the sculptures ... After a while, I found it was [as] fun to watch people's faces crease up in disgust at a giant tape sperm washed up on the beach or a tape man lying in an open-faced dumpster as it was to watch the sculptures themselves."

As far as the most interesting innovations on street art are concerned, Jenkins said his money is on the technology coming out of places like the Graffiti Research Lab.

Their self-stated mission is "outfitting graffiti artists with open-source technologies for urban communication."

The collective is responsible for the creation of laser projections, which they have on a mobile unit and can project onto almost any surface over the entirety of 20-story buildings.

Their other major creation is the throwie. This is a tiny LED light stuck onto coin batteries that can be placed almost anywhere. Throwies have recently been the main attraction of the media because of the bomb scare the lights provoked in Boston in January.

The latest developments are even changing the definition of a street artist; it's the ultimate do-it-yourself movement. Few get recognition, but everyone is welcomed and encouraged to join.

So keep your eyes open and use your head. That deformed shopping cart that resembles a brontosaurus is probably intentional.

Reach reporter Elizabeth Mortenson at features@thedaily.washington.edu.