…Exploring the role of the prankster as artist, activist and social observer and the significance of the prank in society.
Joey Skaggs will deliver the keynote address, “Ephemeral Interventions: Public Space as a Canvas for Art and Activism,” at the Art & Place Conference in Saarbrücken, Germany on May 2, 2025. The conference will also be hosting the German premiere of Andrea Marini’s Art of the Prank documentary on May 1, 2025, which celebrates Skaggs’ six-decade career.
Heads up! The Great White Hoax, Frauds, Forgeries, and 200 Years of Selling Racism in America, a new book by Philip Kadish, is available for pre-order and will be out in June here, here, and more.
Blurb:
“Fake news, outright political lies, a shamelessly partisan press, and the collapse of truth, civility, and shared facts, Philip Kadish argues, are nothing new. The Great White Hoax, a masterpiece of history and literary sleuthing, reveals that the era of Fox News and Donald Trump is simply a return to form. We have been here before.”
Fair Use is at the Supreme Court with potentially huge transformative consequences to artists on both sides of the issue.
The Supreme Court meets Andy Warhol, Prince and a case that could threaten creativity, Nina Totenberg, NPR’s All Things Considered, October 12, 2022
You know all those famous Andy Warhol silk screen prints of Marilyn Monroe and Liz Taylor and lots of other glitterati? Now one of the most famous of these, the Prince series, is at the heart of a case the Supreme Court will examine… And it is a case of enormous importance to all manner of artists. Read the whole article here.
Spanish Art and Activism Collective Homo Velamine Interviews Joey Skaggs [Spanish and English]
Joey Skaggs: “A fool is a fool, no matter what their political leaning is”
by Demófila Martínez and Luis Platypus
Homo Velamine
October 31, 2019
Homo Velamine: The increase of fake news in the media in recent years makes us feel that the limits between fact and fiction are more unclear than ever. In the documentary Art of the Prank (2015), you let the viewer peek into the creative process behind one of your hoaxes. The trickiest part seems to be deciding how far you can take it, without crossing the limits of plausibility and creating something that is impossible to believe. After all these years, does it still surprise you how far this limit can actually be pushed? Which of your performances would you say has pushed this limit the farthest and still has been successful?
Joey Skaggs: Pushing the limits of plausibility is the fun part for me. I create the problem and I create the solution. I take a gamble that what I’m doing is so ridiculous that no one’s going to believe it. I want it to be totally absurd because if the news media does fall for it, it will be even funnier and more effective in revealing their gullibility and/or hypocrisy. Continue reading “Homo Velamine Interviews Joey Skaggs “Maestro of the Farce” [Spanish and English]”
This must-see “DeepFake” video transforms Bill Hader, when he was on Late Night with David Letterman, into Tom Cruise before your very eyes.
Watch the video: Bill Hader channels Tom Cruise [DeepFake], YouTube
A little bit of history: In 1987, an interview with Joey Skaggs was published in a book by RE/Search Pubs called Pranks! in which he predicts and discusses the implications of this exact technology.
AJ: “What is reality?”
JS: “Right. What is reality, and how can you know what is history?
“I’d also like to talk about technology and where we’re going. With the ability to comptuer-enerate photo images and do montage, collage and eventually holograms, we’ll have Hitler alive in South America totally fabricated. We’ll have a home movie of JFK actually screwing Marilyn Monroe, or whatever twisted historical thing we want to create. And it will be virtually impossible to detect that it’s a creation, because of the advancements in technology. We are coming to the forefront tehcnologically of a really frightening media reality. If we don’t sharpen our tools now, our integrity, we’re in for even bigger trouble.”
Read the entire RE/Search Pranks! interview here.
Excerpt:
