Culture Jamming and Reality Hacking

August 28, 2026

RIP Yayoi Kusama 1929 to 2026

Remembering Kusama: In 1968, artist, Yayoi Kusama joined Joey Skaggs’ Hippie Bus Tour to Queens. In a satirical ironic reversal, the group toured neighborhoods and snapped photos of suburbanites mowing their lawns and washing their cars. When the group stopped at Hillside’s Nirvana head shop in Queens, the “Group Image” band played while Kusama painted polka dots on the naked dancers.

Read The Guardian’s Obituary here:
Yayoi Kusama, Japanese artist who became a global superstar, dies aged 97, by Tim Jonze and Sian Cain, August 26, 2026.

August 24, 2026

It’s a Poll Measuring Contest!

Who are you going to believe, me or your lying poll?

Website behind widely shared fake election polls run by 21-year-old, by Sophie Sullivan, Anna Betts and Sam Levine, The Guardian, August 20, 2026.

Exclusive: Rahil Prakash tells the Guardian: ‘I wanted to see if fake polls could penetrate the ecosystem that easily’

A 21-year-old recent college graduate was behind an anonymous website that put out widely shared fake election polling in Wisconsin, Nevada and California, the Guardian can reveal.

The website, Median Strategies, abruptly shut down and withdrew its polling earlier this week following questions from a reporter from the Los Angeles Times. In an unsigned statement, it described a “short-term social experiment” to examine how fake polling “could enter and spread through the political information ecosystem without independent verification”.

Read the whole article here.

August 24, 2026

Hiding in Plain Sight

You too can help a billionaire in need.

Reminds us of Joey Skaggs’ Geraldo Hoax about artists living in water towers.

A comedian’s joke pied-à-terre tax workaround could actually go legit after struggling New Yorkers and homeowners flooded inbox, by Mary K. Jacob, New York Post, August 20, 2026.

A stand-up comedian’s satirical stab at Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s new luxury home tax has snowballed into something she never expected to actually build.

Madison Walser, who splits time between New York and Los Angeles, launched a website called Aura Investments back in May as pure internet bait. The pitch was simple and absurd: struggling artists move into vacant apartments owned by wealthy second-home owners, and in exchange those owners dodge the city’s pied-à-terre tax.

Read the whole article here.

August 24, 2026

AI Flourishes Underground in the Subway

AI takes the F train. h/t Deborah

Fake AI ads in the West 4th Street subway station unite commuters in hatred of AI ads, by Emma Li, Gothamist, August 10, 2026.

“Riding the subway, all I would see were AI ads that made me confused and angry,” Alterman said. “I wanted to know if other people felt the same way.”

In June, an Instagram reel of fake tech advertisements being put up on Subway station walls went viral, gathering 5 million views and more than 250,000 likes. The faux ads were made by Harris Alterman and Dave Ross, two comedians whose usual content caters to the meta-ironic and absurdist appetites of the internet.

One ad read, “What if forks were spoons?” by the fake company, “cutlery.ai.”

Another said, “1 + 1 = _____. Dennis can tell you.”

Read the whole article here.

July 17, 2026

Collecting Rain Water for the Reflecting Pool

If it was gold, he would have taken it.

Giant Iran War ‘Participation Trophy’ For Trump Appears On National Mall, by Jennifer Bendery, Huffpost, July 13, 2026.

Anonymous artists installed a 10-foot monument satirically honoring Trump for starting a war with no “military strategy, diplomacy, or measurable outcomes.”

WASHINGTON — A 10-foot “participation trophy” magically appeared on the National Mall early Monday to satirically honor President Donald Trump for unilaterally starting a war in Iran with no strategy, no stated goals and no plan on how to get the United States out of it.

“We hereby award President Donald J. Trump this participation trophy for his enthusiastic involvement in the Iran War,” reads a plaque on the faux monument, which was installed in the wee hours near the MLK Memorial Bookstore. “While some concern themselves with military strategy, diplomacy, or measurable outcomes, President Trump demonstrated the courage to participate regardless of the final score.” Read the whole article here.