Certain fashion designers may still be infatuated with the subversive look of spray paint on public surfaces, but according to Francesca Gavin, art editor of Dazed & Confused, the writing on the wall spells "outdated." In "Street Renegades: New Underground Art" (Laurence King Publishing), her new survey of groundbreaking street art, Gavin interviews 30 artists who customize street signs with children's toys, cover lamp posts in knitted mufflers, and paste vinyl Band-Aids on cracks in the pavement. Their aim is purely generous—they don't want to sell anything, they just want to make us notice that the world around us is full of free delights and inspiration. And that, says Gavin, is nothing short of revolutionary.

Why do you think fashion keeps circling back to street art as a signifier of what's cool?
The street has always been strongly associated with cool. From 1950's hot-rod culture to the emergence of hip-hop in the 1970's and 1980's, cultural expression on the street plays into a history of something revolutionary. Art in the street upsets what's expected, makes people stop and stare. It's similar to moments of revolutionary fashion—the same shock value as the first miniskirt. Fashion is always looking for something new and inventive and street art often pushes those boundaries.

How has the commercial popularity of traditional spray-paint and wheat-paste graffiti influenced these artists' creative decisions?
The commodification of street art definitely played a part in artists striving to reinvent street pieces. The street art that emerged in the 1990's often played around with ideas about branding, logos, and commercialism; it was fighting advertising with its own language. But the graphic nature of the work made it incredibly easy for advertisers to adapt—cue the invention of guerrilla marketing. To make things worse, street artists, in an attempt to make a living, often sold out to the brands they were criticizing.

How are these newer artists defending themselves again similar ad appropriation?
The current move toward fresh materials is about more than fighting street art's commercialism. Old materials are often making old comments about the space around us. The world and technology have changed a lot since graffiti in the seventies and eighties and wheat pastes and stickers in the nineties. People are more interested in engaging with new ideas.

Are local governments warmer toward this work, which looks more obviously like art, than they are toward tagging and graffiti?
Street art has far less of a negative reception than graffiti. The minute you pick up a spray can you're seen as a vandal. Place an odd object on the street, paste something on a wall, or use house paint and you're an artist. If it looks more obviously like art, it's simply less intimidating.

How did you find the artists you feature?
Some I stumbled across in the street; many I found wandering the Internet, which has been hugely influential in recording art that is so innately ephemeral. I searched for the most bizarre, strange, and sculptural pieces. For me, 3-D work is really interesting, as it forces things out of the flatness of city walls.

Some of these public-work pieces seem so gentle and sweet, yet you say that they're all inherently revolutionary political statements. Can you explain?
Much of the work is commenting in some way on the world around us, on society, on urban space. Rather than passively consuming or ignoring the world, artists are expressing their ideas and opinions. Arguably the act of creation itself is revolutionary and utopian, as it's about making the world rather than being fed it. Street art works are political by default.