…Exploring the role of the prankster as artist, activist and social observer and the significance of the prank in society.
A Holiday to Remember in Bagdad, courtesy of Abidin Travels.
For your trip to Bagdad, follow the links for flights, car rental, hotels, tours, food, and more.
The Web site, part of Abel Abidin’s installation for the 2007 Venice Biennale is a multimedia virtual tour showing what life is like for Iraqis at this moment.
Helpful hints found on the Web site:
Nonverbal communication
Useful items
From monochrom:
Hans Dichand, born in 1921, founded the Austrian “Kronenzeitung” (“Crown newspaper”) in 1959 and still acts as its editor in chief to this day. With over 40% market share, this right-wing populist paper has a unique position of power, and Dichand used this to influence Austrian politics to a great extent. This media-political practice earned him the nickname of “Kanzlermacher” (“He who makes the chancellor”).
Shortly after Mr. Dichand started blogging in November 2007, another weblog under his name appeared, where an unknown writer spoofs the newsmaker by using his rather unique tabloid writing style to express views and ideas contrary to those of the original, and to poke fun at the mighty newsmaker.
This fake blog has gathered quite a bit of media attention over the last weeks, especially since the original Dichand saw it necessary to write about “The Forger,” as the fake blogger has been called on numerous occasions.
Red faces for Howard’s party over fake leaflets
by Barbara McMahon in Sydney
November 23, 2007
The Guardian
Australian prime minister John Howard’s faltering re-election campaign was badly damaged yesterday by a last-minute scandal in which supporters were accused of a dirty tricks campaign that sought to show the opposition as terrorist sympathisers.
Two days before the general election members of Howard’s Liberal party were caught distributing bogus pamphlets falsely linking the Labor party with Islamic terrorists. The flyers, purporting to be from a fake organisation called the Islamic Australia Federation, were posted through letterboxes in the marginal seat of Lindsay in suburban Sydney.
They suggested that the Labor party approved of forgiving the men involved in the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings which killed more than 200 people, 88 of them Australian. There was a forged Labor logo on the leaflet and the phrase Allahu Akbar, God is Great, had been misspelled as Ala Akba. Continue reading “Dirty Trick Marks Australian Political Campaign”
Prankster puts Kirribilli House on sale
theage.com.au
November 22, 2007
An online prankster has listed the prime minister’s Sydney residence, Kirribilli House, for sale on an internet real estate site.
It’s not the first time Kirribilli House has been the target of a bogus for-sale listing.
The latest fictitious advertisement suggests the four-bedroom abode at 111 Kirribilli Avenue will be “open for inspection – sorry open for election” this Saturday.
“Far superior to any old Lodge in Canberra, this house fits a family of five and provides the ultimate abode in which to be relaxed and comfortable,” the ad says, playing on John Howard’s statement before the 1996 election on his vision for Australia. Continue reading “Prankster Puts Australian Prime Minister’s House on Sale”
Consuming War
An exhibition curated by Barbara Koenen
November 4 to January 20, 2008
Hyde Park Art Center
5020 S. Cornell Avenue
Chicago, IL 60615
Featuring works by Lynda Barry, Wafaa Bilal, Mary Brogger, Adam Brooks, Burtonwood & Holmes, Michael Hernandez de Luna, Fred Holland, Harold Mendez, Michael Rakowitz, Ellen Rothenberg, Edra Soto, Paula White and Dolores Wilber.
Focusing on the U.S. conflict in the Middle East over the past 10 years, Consuming War addresses the ways the American media and consumer culture have manipulated and influenced our perceptions of war, often turning it into a spectacle for American consumption. While war is an underlying theme in all the works, each addresses the concept of war, and our relationship to it, from a variety of angles, creating pieces that range from political cartoons to sculptures that recreate the archeological artifacts looted from the National Museum of Iraq and large suspended papier mâché bombs made from sale advertisements. Timely in its subject matter, Consuming War offers an innovative platform in which the complex and multifarious connections between war, capitalism, American consumer culture, and our everyday lives can be re-situated and critically examined.
Related links:
image: Proposed work by Burtonwood & Holmes, 2007
via Art Threat