…Exploring the role of the prankster as artist, activist and social observer and the significance of the prank in society.
Welcome to Art of the Prank, produced and edited by Joey Skaggs. Here you will find insights, information, news and discussions about art, pranks, hoaxes, culture jamming & reality hacking around the world – past, present and future – mainstream and counter culture. You are invited to contribute to its development. May your journey be filled with more than your expectations.
JOEY SKAGGS SATIRE AND ART ACTIVISM,
1960s TO THE PRESENT AND BEYOND
A new series of short oral history films,
produced and directed by Judy Drosd and Joey Skaggs
ART OF THE PRANK, THE MOVIE:
Andrea Marini’s award winning feature documentary about
New York artist and activist Joey Skaggs
This “sticky” post will be here for a while. Scroll down for other posts.
Inspired by Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi (1896), Trump gets his comeuppance in Germany. Merde!
“‘Monster’s Paradise,’ lampooning US President Donald Trump, has world premiere at Hamburg Opera,” by Ronald Blum, AP News, February 3, 2026.
HAMBURG, Germany (AP) — Tobias Kratzer spoke in disbelief ahead of the world premiere of “Monster’s Paradise” by Olga Neuwirth and Elfriede Jelinek, which features a gluttonous, ravenous, insatiable President-King, lampooning U.S. President Donald Trump.
“The metaphor has become a reality,” the Hamburg State Opera artistic director said in his office Sunday morning. “I’m really hoping in — what is it, eight hours? — the piece is not completely outdated because up until now it has always gone closer and closer to not being a satire but being reality.”
Jelinek, 79 and winner of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Literature, collaborated with Neuwirth for the first time in two decades, the Austrian duo combining on a German-language libretto. The 57-year-old Neuwirth won the 2022 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition, three years after she became the first woman composer with a work presented at the Vienna State Opera. Read the whole article here.
Who do you believe? Me or your lying eyes?
NOTE: To see the Moltbots (supposedly) in action, visit here: https://www.moltbook.com/m/general
“Moltbook was peak AI theater,” by Will Douglas Heaven, MIT Technology Review, February 6, 2026.
The viral social network for bots reveals more about our own current mania for AI as it does about the future of agents.
For a few days this week the hottest new hangout on the internet was a vibe-coded Reddit clone called Moltbook, which billed itself as a social network for bots. As the website’s tagline puts it: “Where AI agents share, discuss, and upvote. Humans welcome to observe.”
We observed! Launched on January 28 by Matt Schlicht, a US tech entrepreneur, Moltbook went viral in a matter of hours. Schlicht’s idea was to make a place where instances of a free open-source LLM-powered agent known as OpenClaw (formerly known as ClawdBot, then Moltbot), released in November by the Austrian software engineer Peter Steinberger, could come together and do whatever they wanted. Read the whole article here.
In 1990, Joey Skagg, posing as German anesthesiologist Dr. Joseph Schlafer, offered the ultimate alternative for the stressful vacation: Comacocoon.
These days (36 years later), HuffPost reports that tourists are choosing “Sleepcations” rather than seeking taxing and exhausting adventures. These wellness retreats offer a “clinical cocoon” of white noise and lavender oil. You can visit the most exotic places on earth, and sleep the whole time.
Comacocoon offered both. Dr. Schlafer’s clients could chose the “Magical Mystery Tour” where they could be rock stars on a sellout tour, or take the Thrill Seeker to ride the rapids of a selected adventure, all while in an anesthesia induced coma. The Honeymoon Tour was particularly enticing. Each bride and groom could have the honeymoon of their dreams, while believing their partner was having an equally good time. And, while you were under, you could have elective surgery, quit smoking, and wake up fluent in a foreign language. Much more productive than just sleeping your way through your vacation!
As we see people flocking to “sleep hotels”, it’s clear that Skaggs was right. We do want to check out of reality. When the world gets too stressful, the ultimate luxury isn’t a destination, it’s a dream.
“More Americans Are Choosing To Take ‘Sleepcations’,” by Caroline Bologna, Huffpost, February 3, 2026.
Travel experts break down this growing industry trend and what you should know before you attempt this kind of trip.
From “gig-tripping” to “travel dupes” to “hush trips,” the number of new travel trends is seemingly endless. But perhaps the most appealing concept in the tourism space of late is the “sleepcation.”
So much of travel these days seems to involve running ourselves ragged trying to hit every amazing attraction we see on TikTok and Instagram. Sleepcations, however, take the polar opposite approach to vacation. Read the whole article here.
Devil or angel? You decide.
“Italy launches investigation as newly-restored angel painting in Rome church now resembles Giorgia Meloni,” by Barbie Latza Nadeau, CNN, February 3, 2026.
Rome, Italy — A painting in a Rome church has prompted an investigation following complaints that a newly-restored cherub bears a remarkable likeness to the nation’s leader, Giorgia Meloni.
The controversy surrounds restoration works carried out on a painting in the Chapel of the Holy Souls in Purgatory in the Basilica of St. Lawrence in Lucina, central Rome.
Although the work was completed in December, side-by-side images posted to social media in recent days of the restored work and Meloni show a striking resemblance. Read the whole article here.
“Away in a manger, no crib for a bed, the little Lord Jesus laid down His sweet head…”
and then…
and then…
and then…
Along came Skaggs with his 1968 anti-war art protest, “Vietnamese Christmas Nativity Burning.”