…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.
A “national call to creative resistance.” Join the effort to end fascism. Register your events on October 2nd, 3rd, & 4th.
A heartfelt farewell to Screaming Mad George (a.k.a. Joji Tani), who left us on February 10, 2026. He was my student at SVA in 1977. I was teaching media communications, and to involve the students in the art of creating a spectacle, we took to the streets. The idea was to use a diversionary tactic to grab public attention.
The students staged a fake demonstration about a real issue in front of the New York governor’s office — the environmental impact of the supersonic Concorde jet. In the midst of the demonstration, the protesters were attacked by New York’s legendary Sewer Monster, created by Screaming Mad George.
This was early in his extraordinally creative career designing visual effects for bizarre, macabre, and gruesomely realistic effects. Read the full story here.
Read his obituary here: “The Man Behind The PS1’s Oddest Game, Has Passed Away”,
There’s a long history of clowning for social justice. We need more of it. Thank you Felipe.
Send in the clowns: the new guard of activists combating the right, by Morgan Jerkins, The Guardian, September 16, 2026.
A growing cohort of performers ‘clown’ as a means to innovate traditional protest and create social change
On a humid morning on 15 July, Tillie the Clown, a Brooklyn-based drag performer whose real name is Taylor Horne, was waiting to be let inside a New York City council meeting. Horne had started getting into character at 5am, for a makeup and clown-costuming process that would take two hours. It would be another 10 hours before Horne was allowed to address the city council about the passing of Romanch’s Law, which would phase out and ultimately ban New York’s horse carriage industry.
When will “cancel culture” evolve and stop trying to canceling speech that’s clearly and obviously protected by the 1st Amendment?
The price of campus humorlessness, by Washington Post, September 8, 2026.
The University of Washington pays $600,000 to a professor it investigated for poking fun at a land acknowledgment.
One way to identify ideologues is that they won’t tolerate ribbing. After the University of Washington recommended that computer science professors include in their course materials an acknowledgment of “the Coast Salish peoples of this land,” one instructor responded with a parody statement on his syllabus.
That angered the university administration, which launched an investigation. But now the professor has prevailed in court, winning $600,000 in damages and legal fees, as well as securing a vow by the university to allow his parody statement. Read whole article here.
Yes, if you’re only looking for what you want to see.
Fashion victim in fur suit sparks Bigfoot panic in small Maine town: ‘Very convincing’, by Zoe Hussain, New York Post, September 6, 2026.
The hairy truth finally came out.
Maine cops launched an investigation after a surge of 911 calls reported spotting Bigfoot roaming around town — only to discover it was actually just a fashion victim in a “very convincing” costume.
Damariscotta cops received an “unusually high number of calls” on Tuesday about a Sasquatch-like creature wandering around the tiny mid-coast tourist destination, including during morning drop-off on the first day of school, according to NBC News and the Damariscotta Police Department.