Tim Jackson - The Art of the Prank

August 2, 2011December 15, 2023

Artist Zefrey Throwall Loses His Shirt on Wall Street

From Tim Jackson: “Putting it all on the line – a fine performance!”

A Bare Market Lasts One Morning
by Melena Ryzik
The New York Times
August 1, 2011

It was an early Monday morning like any other on Wall Street. Before most of the blue-shirted financiers descended, there came an army of helpers: the custodians and coffee fetchers, personal trainers and headsetted assistants who make the money street run smoothly. They marched along the sidewalks, in a hurry to start their workweek.

Zefrey Throwell, who devised the project, speaking with a police officer on Wall Street. Mr. Throwell also participated in “Ocularpation,” playing the part of a hot dog vendor.

Here and there, though, a few people were slowing down, like the trader barking into his cellphone in the calm before the market opened. He paused to loosen his tie. Unbutton his shirt. Take off his pants.

“He”™s buck-naked “” Lord have mercy!” a woman said, stopping to gawk at, loudly judge and then photograph a sudden expanse of flesh. Continue reading “Artist Zefrey Throwall Loses His Shirt on Wall Street”

March 26, 2011December 15, 2023

Daniel Bejar’s Double Trouble

Submitted by Tim Jackson: What happens when someone’s reality hacking becomes your doppelganger…

Two Bejars
by Kelefa Sanneh
The New Yorker
March 21, 2011

It was six o”™clock when Daniel Bejar presented himself at the security desk of 30 Rockefeller Plaza. The man behind the counter looked up and said, “May I see your I.D.?” Bejar produced his driver”™s license. The man scanned it into the system and then frowned. “Did you lose the pass you already had?”

Bejar smiled and shook his head.

“We gave you a pass and took your picture earlier, right?”

Bejar stopped smiling. A woman appeared and asked a question that was not a question: “Daniel, can you come this way?” They disappeared into an office, from which she made urgent phone calls: “The gentleman that”™s here has the same name as a gentleman that”™s already checked in.”

Bejar had anticipated the confusion. He is an artist with a wide mischievous streak. For one project, “Get Lost!,” he replaced New York City subway maps with versions that had a slightly different coastline and no names or markings””he wanted to evoke the city as it might have looked in 1609, when Henry Hudson sailed past. Four years ago, Bejar received an effusive e-mail from a man in southern Ontario, a self-described “musical enthusiast”; apparently, the man had meant to reach a different Daniel Bejar, a singer and songwriter from Vancouver who leads a band called Destroyer. Bejar studied up on Bejar. “I was, like, all right””we”™re going to share this for the rest of our lives,” Bejar said. “He”™s not going to stop making music, and I”™m not going to stop making art. But it took a while for me to figure out what to do.” Continue reading “Daniel Bejar’s Double Trouble”

February 23, 2011December 15, 2023

Let Them Eat Cake!

From Tim Jackson:

This guy stole Paris Hilton’s 30th birthday cake – from her party – and then fed it to the homeless on Skid Row in L.A.. Let them eat cake, indeed!

From Paz’s Facebook:

I woke up this morning with a $2000 birthday cake in my living room. It’s big. It’s red. It says “Paris”. And its fucking delicious.

24 hours ago I got a call from my well-connected buddy Kevin. “Dude, I’m crashing Paris Hilton’s birthday tonight. Pretty sure I can get you in,” he says. “Pretty sure you can’t,” I say. “Pretty sure I will,” he says.

90 minutes later we’re strolling down a red carpet like we belong there.

Read the rest of this hilarious story.

Read more about it here (in case you don’t believe it):

Paris Hilton’s birthday cake burgled, Sydney Morning Herald, February 23, 2011

Paris Hilton’s birthday cake stolen, nobody cares, Salon, February 18, 2011

Photos of what happened next: Continue reading “Let Them Eat Cake!”

March 27, 2010December 15, 2023

Guerrilla Marketing: Dante’s Inferno Revisited

Submitted by Tim Jackson:

The Electronic Arts campaign for the video game ‘Dante’s Inferno’, recently reviewed in the Times, had quite a release campaign. It utilized some interesting hoaxes, including a fake Christian protest. Curious, I hunted down the whole list of ad campaign stunts.

To hell and back: EA’s guerrilla marketing campaign for ‘Dante’s Inferno’
by David Griner
Adworks Blog

Introduction
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Take, for example, the marketing of Electronic Arts’s blockbuster new video game, Dante’s Inferno. Last year, the company set about trying to educate the public not only about the game but about a 14th-century literary classic and the very nature of human morality. What ensued was one of the most complex campaigns in video-game history, one that got EA burned for fakery and sexism, and then””thanks to a bold change of direction””lauded for intellect and creativity. Continue reading “Guerrilla Marketing: Dante’s Inferno Revisited”

August 2, 2009December 15, 2023

Prank Traditions

Submitted by Tim Jackson:

A great prank? As it was 208 years ago, I thought I’d mention it…

swift_modest_proposal1-100 I’ve often thought of Swift’s “A Modest Proposal: For Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public” as a great early satire as prank.

dog3-100 Not dissimilar to the Joey Skaggs dog food restaurant hoax/satire.

pr3404-t9_00007-100 I just heard about Daniel Defoe’s “The Shortest-Way with the Dissenters; Or, Proposals for the Establishment of the Church” written on July 31, in 1701. His satire called for the savage elimination of dissenters. When the church found out it was parody, he was (allegedly) pilloried. The crowd threw flowers instead of fruit.

images: astroblogos.wordpress.com & Indiana.edu