Author: Moderator

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Prank Artists or ___ Artists? You Decide

A production budget between $2.5 million and $5 million changes the dynamic from a Yes Men corporate prank to something entirely different.

Here are two articles, one day apart, about Northland Tales, an unscripted prank comedy series, produced by the Yes Men’s Igor Ramos (and others) and financed through CBC, the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, and the Indigenous Screen Office. The show purported to use pranks for “social action” to address “historical injustices.”

When two interviewees, Frances Widdowson and Lindsay Shepherd, separately expressed concerns about the truthfulness of their interviewers, CBC paused production. Frances Widdowson, sensing something was “off” during her interview, live streamed it to social media (see below).

Article #1:
CBC pausing production on satirical Indigenous show, by Mark Gollom, CBC News, May 20, 2026.

Article #2:
The CBC’s Northland Tales scandal isn’t about bad taste—it’s about what happens when public money funds deception, by The Hub, May 21, 2026.

Frances Widdowson’s live stream in the middle of her interview with “Mike Smith” (aka Igor Vamos of the Yes Men):

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Joey Skaggs’ First Easter Sunday Crucifixion Event Turns 60!

60 years ago, in 1966 on Easter Sunday, Joey Skaggs dragged his iconoclastic sculpture of a naked and decayed figure of Jesus Christ on a crucifix into Tompkins Square Park on the lower east side. It was his personal statement about the war in Vietnam and the hypocrisy of religion.

This was the beginning of Skaggs’ career as an artist who used the streets as his theater.

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Joey Skaggs’ Cathouse for Dogs Turns 50!

50 years ago on April 1, 1976, in response to a subpoena issued by the New York State Attorney General, Joey Skaggs revealed that his Cathouse for Dogs (doggy bordello) was a satirical media performance hoax.

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Working for Change

Sometimes you need a cloak of invisibility, sometimes you need a coat of armor, and sometimes you just need to go naked! I encourage any attempt to provoke positive change.

Social Malpractice in the Age of Cultural Compliance, by Ed Woodham, Hyperallergic, March 25, 2026.

What happens when the language of social practice becomes a tool of the very systems it once hoped to challenge?

We are living in a strangely apocalyptic moment where a perverse logic runs the machinery of public life while insisting everything is just fine. Around the world, political systems are tightening control over commerce, education, culture, and communication. Independent critical thinking is increasingly treated as subversive rather than a civic virtue. Public space, once the laboratory for egalitarian expression, is shrinking under surveillance, privatization, and corporate branding.

So where does socially engaged art fit into a world progressively hostile to independent thought? Read the whole article here.

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Star Power Lights Up the Kennedy Center

Strong voices speak out against Trump’s attack on our freedom of expression.

Artists detonate attack on Trump at the Kennedy Center, by Ashley Murray, Indiana Capital Chronicle, AlterNet, March 28, 2026.

WASHINGTON — A host of celebrities outside the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Friday kicked off a weekend of protest against President Donald Trump’s expansion of executive power and his administration’s pressure on freedom of expression — from theater programming in the nation’s capital, to late-night television.

More than a dozen activist performers and creators rallied for Artists United for Our Freedoms, an event organized by the advocacy group Committee for the First Amendment. Read the whole article here.

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  1. Dance Power
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