Check out the work of artist Banksy and this video from London’s Channel 4 News about his efforts on the West Bank wall separating Israel from Palestine.
First saw this video on Hearing Test.
The Yes Men Are Coming! The Yes Men Are Coming!
In the midst of their ‘Yes, Bush Can!’ campaign, the busy pranksters spread faux Republican cheer on their way to L.A. for the opening of their new movie. Reprinted from the LA Weekly, September 23, 2004, Photos by Dan Ollman.
“Bush stood right over there,” says Laurel. “They built a platform for him and three governors and the secretary of the interior, and surrounded them with firemen made up with fake soot to look like they”d just been fighting fires.” Laurel, a member of ecological activist group the Oxygen Collective, is gesturing to a ridge overlooking a partially charred meadow on the outskirts of Medford, Oregon. “We had a busload of farmers and children with a few banners. They weren”t expecting us, but they were prepared. The whole time, we were circled by Coast Guard helicopters with machine guns pointed at us. That”s when Bush unveiled his Healthy Forests Initiative.”
This lesson in George Bush”s poisonous environmental policies is actually a collateral benefit of our visit to this historical spot “” I”m here as an embedded reporter with the Yes Men”s “Yes, Bush Can!” campaign as they film a music video for “The Smokey the Log Theme.” Smokey the Log is the “Yes, Bush Can!” campaign”s new pro-lumber mascot for the USDA Forest Service, replacing the obsolete namesake bear. Yes Man Mike Bonanno, looking like an escapee from a Syd and Marty Krofft production in a giant anthropomorphic latex log costume, clambers on top of a blackened stump. “Now dance!” commands his cohort, Andy Bichlbaum. “Dance and jump to the ground!” Able to see out only through one armhole, and constricted by faux log to well below the knees, Mike gamely jigs around the sawed-flat surface of the old-growth conifer, but when it comes time to dismount, he teeters and tumbles appropriately but painfully to the forest floor. Continue reading “The Yes Men Are Coming! The Yes Men Are Coming!”
Greenpeace Hijacks Kleenex PR Stunt in Times Square
Greenpeace activists performed an amusing and savvy intervention on a Kleenex commercial shoot in Times Square, effectively hijacking their ad campaign, and shutting down the shoot for the rest of the day (March 24th 2007). Kleenex, responsible for vast old-growth forest destruction in Northern Canada’s Boreal Forest, opened the door for this one.
Friends of mine at notanalternative.net put together this neat little video of the jam:
And check out the main campaign against Kleenex’s criminal timber practices at: http://kleercut.net (a good culture jam in its own right).
With additional coverage here at gothamist.com.
Instructions for Billboard Liberation
The Billboard:
Most billboards are wheat-pasted posters, coming in two standard sizes, the most common being 12 x 22 feet. These are the billboards you see atop taller buildings and along the highway. The freestanding billboard of this size can be accessed with a 12 foot ladder. To access the ones atop buildings, you need Continue reading “Instructions for Billboard Liberation”
Culture Jamming: Hacking, Slashing and Sniping in the Empire of Signs by Mark Dery
In 1993, Mark Dery wrote this seminal discourse coining the phrase Culture Jamming. I think it’s a must read for anyone interested in the subject. This is an open source document and is available on Mark Dery’s Web site. JS
“Culture jamming,” a term I have popularized by articles in The New York Times and Adbusters, might best be defined as media hacking, information warfare, terror-art, and guerrilla semiotics, all in one. Billboard bandits, pirate TV and radio broadcasters, media hoaxers, and other vernacular media wrenchers who intrude on the intruders, investing ads, newscasts, and other media artifacts with subversive meanings are all culture jammers. Continue reading “Culture Jamming: Hacking, Slashing and Sniping in the Empire of Signs by Mark Dery”