…Exploring the role of the prankster as artist, activist and social observer and the significance of the prank in society.
“Joey Skaggs: Stop BioPEEP,” the 10th film in the “Joey Skaggs Satire and Art Activism, 1960s to the Present and Beyond” oral history series, is screening at the New Jersey Film Festival at 7 pm on Friday, September 20, 2024. It’s also available to stream online for 24 hours. Details are here.
30 years ago, I perpetrated a media hoax called Dog Meat Soup in which, pretending to be a Korean entrepreneur, I solicited dog shelters for their unwanted dogs to be used as food for human consumption. My intent was to expose hostility and racism that permeates both the public discourse and the media’s coverage. As I expected, all hell broke loose, as gullible animal lovers spewed outrageous invectives against ALL Asians (they apparently couldn’t tell the difference between Koreans, Japanese, Chinese and others) accusing them of outrageous acts of violence against animals and telling all Asians to go back to their countries and cook their own babies.
This cultural intolerance is eerily like what’s happening now based on fake information perpetrated by politicians with an agenda, targeting immigrants and accusing them of eating family pets in Springfield Ohio. Prejudiced and biased opinions about this are dominating our news and social media platforms. Let’s not be fooled by reactionary politicians who have a political agenda to confuse and divide the public.
Check out John Tierney’s 1994 expose of the Dog Meat Soup hoax for The New York Sunday Times Magazine.
And watch the Dog Meat Soup segment of a 2003 ABC TV 20/20 interview.
JOEY SKAGGS SATIRE AND ART ACTIVISM,
1960s TO THE PRESENT AND BEYOND
A new series of short oral history films,
produced and directed by Judy Drosd and Joey Skaggs
ART OF THE PRANK, THE MOVIE:
Andrea Marini’s award winning feature documentary about
New York artist and activist Joey Skaggs
This “sticky” post will be here for a while. Scroll down for other posts.
“Joey Skaggs: The Solomon Project” (16:22) will screen at Miami Web Fest
In 1995, Dr. Joseph Bonuso, Ph.D. (a.k.a. Joey Skaggs), announced that he, along with 150 computer scientists and attorneys specializing in artificial intelligence, had developed a solution to the crisis of American jurisprudence, They were poised to radically revamp the entire judicial system using a distributed program running on a set of super computers that could deliberate on evidence and render swift, unassailable equal justice for all, putting judges in the back seat and relegating juries to history.
This is the tenth film in the oral history series “Joey Skaggs Satire and Art Activism oral history series“.
The April Fools’ Day parade this year was led by a billboard truck projecting images of Joey Skaggs as the Grim Reaper with his Mobile Guillotine sculpture mounted on the back of a tricycle. The theme was Democracy at the Guillotine. The “parade” started at 59th St and 5th Ave, stopped at Trump Tower and then went to Washington Square Park and beyond.
Here are some photos:
