In the 1970s, when the practice of graffiti was attaching itself to urban musical and artistic movements and confronting its reputation as being nothing more than vandalism, the sides of the battle for respectability were easy to identify: In one corner were the police, who decried it all as destruction of property. In the other were the “taggers,” who made spray paint their calling card. At that time, being a successful graffiti artist meant finding high-profile locations, persistence in spreading one’s tag as widely as possible, and creativity in terms of design and technique.

Today, in an age dominated by technology and people who spend more time in the virtual world than the real world, graffiti artists must do a whole lot more than spray. For starters, there’s the technological know-how of getting your work not just online, but into the social networks and channels populated by fans of the art form. Then there’s the aesthetic quandary of how to translate one’s work to the Internet. Should it exist as a photo album? A slide show? A graphic? A video?

Perhaps no one in the world has done as much to lead graffiti art into the digital age as New York’s Graffiti Research Lab, better known by its three-letter tag, G.R.L. Founded by James Powderly and Evan Roth, G.R.L. has re-imagined the profile of the conventional graffiti artist, marrying a design expertise with the traits of a software developer, film director, and online celebrity. Creating an open-source computer program that allows just about anyone to construct a “L.A.S.E.R. Tag” assembly, G.R.L. has risen to fame in the graffiti community by posting an array of short films that show the group’s late-night escapades, using a projector and a laser pointer to splash light on the sides of skyscrapers, much as their counterparts did some 30 years ago with spray paint on the sides of subway cars. The tags of their forebears, of course, could not be removed with the click of a button.

Messrs. Powderly and Roth are not the first graffiti artists to use the Internet to reach a global fan base. Search YouTube for “graffiti,” and about 56,000 results ping back. But in developing a whole new style of graffiti art, and in packaging footage of their exploits in carefully edited and orchestrated videos, G.R.L. has set itself apart on the urban art landscape. Late Saturday evening, G.R.L.’s most popular video surpassed the 1 million viewers mark on YouTube, which doesn’t even take into account the numerous other sites that host the same video under different names. Last month, the collective was invited to show its work at the Sundance Film Festival, where it not only allowed festival attendees to try L.A.S.E.R. Tag for themselves, but filmed itself tagging the streets of Park City, Utah, editing together its exploits into a final film that went on to enjoy its world premiere at the festival (view the complete Sundance video at graffitiresearchlab.com). And starting February 24, the G.R.L. will be one of the featured exhibits of a new show at the Museum of Modern Art dubbed “Design and the Elastic Mind.” For the exhibition’s opening reception next week, G.R.L. has already reached out to some of today’s top spray painters and invited them to give L.A.S.E.R. Tag a try.

The real question — not just for art and film critics, but also for those in the graffiti world — is what are we to make of Messrs. Powderly and Roth? Are they vandals or videographers? Taggers or filmmakers? Fringe anarchists or art celebrities?

“What we do definitely offers a twist to the traditional forms of graffiti,” Mr. Powderly said recently. “In some ways, we aren’t facing the same consequences as other graffiti artists, who risk getting arrested. We can do a lot of what they do, but since our tags go away when we turn the equipment off, we can’t follow them all the way to that edge. That said, much of what we do exposes a far larger audience to graffiti in a way that might remove some of the stigma. Some have called us ‘graffiti outreach project,’ or even ‘graffiti karaoke.'”

Why “karaoke”? Because of G.R.L.’s do-it-yourself approach. Whether appearing with their work in Chelsea or on the sidelines of Sundance, Messrs. Powderly and Roth have made a habit of inviting spectators to try out L.A.S.E.R. Tag for themselves. The founders have also encouraged others around the world to replicate their art and technology, providing all the necessary technical information on their Web site to aid others in creating their own brand of digital tagging. It’s the same sense of community fostered by the original graffiti artists of the ’70s, as is G.R.L.’s vehement anti-authority bent.

“It’s all about scale,” Mr. Powderly said. “You can tag a building, or reface a wall, but that will only get you so much attention. But now imagine an army of people like us, projecting on skyscrapers where literally thousands, or hundreds of thousands, will see what you’re doing. We call this WMD — weapons of mass defacement — and the goal is to put in the hands of the individual the same power to reach an audience that companies like Microsoft have when they put up a huge billboard in Times Square.”

Given this philosophy, Mr. Powderly said the G.R.L. brand of graffiti art may differ from conventional graffiti art in terms of execution, but not in terms of intent. Much as the taggers of the ’70s wanted to express themselves creatively and leave a permanent mark on the establishment, so does G.R.L. approach its missions with a focus on showmanship, artistry, and provocation. If the mark isn’t permanent, ideally the effect is.

Even G.R.L.’s reliance on video to spread the word about L.A.S.E.R. Tag is something steeped firmly in the in the history of graffiti. “When people say that, the first thing I do is point to Martha Cooper,” Mr. Powderly said. “Much of what I know of graffiti in the late ’70s and ’80s and ’90s is because this documentarian followed these writers and developed a trust and a relationship with them. Without her films, we would know very little about that time. As video makers, we kind of use the Internet the way the old graffiti artists used the subway. They relied on trains to spread their work out across the city, and now we use these videos and the Internet to spread our work out around the world.”

ssnyder@nysun.com