Creative Activism - The Art of the Prank

October 10, 2024October 10, 2024

“Joey Skaggs: The Solomon Project” Wins Best TV/Web Episode

29 years ago, Joey Skaggs created The Solomon Project, a series of super computers utilizing AI to replace the entire American judicial system… What could possibly go wrong?

Last month (September 2024), Joey Skaggs’ oral history documentary, “Joey Skaggs: The Solomon Project,” an episode in the oral history series, “Joey Skaggs Satire and Art Activism, 1960s to the Present and Beyond,” was awarded Best TV/Web Episode by the Williamsburg International Film and Music Competition (WilliFest).

Next month (November, 2024), it will be featured in the NewsFest Film and Writers’ Festival and the South Carolina Underground Film Festival!

Screening details are here.

September 2, 2024

Seeding Activism

From a tiny joke to a mighty oak…

Wall-to-Wall Walz at the Minnesota State Fair Seed Art Show, Isabella Segalovich, Hyperallergic, August 30, 2024

Local artists get political in painstakingly crafted mosaics at the only state fair crop art display in the United States.

FALCON HEIGHTS, Minnesota — From a rotating gallery of butter sculptures to a hall bursting with quilts and embroidery, the annual Minnesota State Fair is always awash with creative endeavors. But the line is always the longest at the crop art display, the only one of its kind at a state fair in the United States. Here, fairgoers crowd shoulder-to-shoulder, sipping honey-infused lemonade from the nearby beekeeping room as they inspect hundreds of painstakingly crafted mosaics made entirely out of Minnesota-grown seeds. And more than any other art on the fairgrounds, this richly nutty art form is often explicitly and proudly political. Click here for more.

March 28, 2024March 28, 2024

Announcing NYC’s 39th Annual April Fools’ Day Parade

New York’s irreverent April Fools’ Day Parade returns, poking fun once again at the past year’s displays of hype, hypocrisy, deceit, bigotry and downright stupidity. Nothing is sacred. Our satire knows no bounds.

For the 39th year, the public is encouraged to participate, in or out of costume, with or without floats, and may join the procession at any point along the parade route. Floats can be no wider than 10’ and no longer than 30’. They can be self-propelled, towed, pushed or pulled. Customized bicycles, tricycles, baby carriages and aerial balloons are welcome.

The parade will form at Grand Army Plaza at 5th Avenue and 59th Street in Manhattan at 12:00 noon sharp on Monday, April 1, 2024, and head down 5th Avenue to Trump Tower and then to Washington Square Park for the climactic crowning of the King of Fools.

This year’s parade will feature a giant mobile billboard truck featuring “Democracy at the Guillotine” which encourages all to vote to save our democracy.

The parade press release and downloadable images are here: http://aprilfoolsdayparade.com

Here are some of the images:

Please share the message widely.

February 3, 2024February 10, 2024

“Joey Skaggs: The Solomon Project” to screen in two film festivals in Feb, 2024

San Francisco Independent Film Festival (SF IndieFest): Thursday, February 8-18, 2024. Online for 10 days. Tickets are here.

New Jersey Film Festival, Spring 2024: Friday, February 9, 2024. In-Person at 7 PM in Voorhees Hall #105/Rutgers University, 71 Hamilton Street, New Brunswick, NJ AND Online for 24 Hours. Tickets are here.

Anita LaBelle has penned an insightful review of the film for New Jersey Stage Magazine.

Reminder: “Joey Skaggs: Celebrity Sperm Bank” will be streaming free until May 31, 2023 at the Pérez Art Museum Miami Exhibition, Perpetual Motion, Curated by Barbara London.

February 3, 2024

Backlash to Forward Motion

Sometimes a red balloon is an egg…

Data poisoning: how artists are sabotaging AI to take revenge on image generators, by T.J. Thomson, The Conversation, December 17, 2023

Imagine this. You need an image of a balloon for a work presentation and turn to a text-to-image generator, like Midjourney or DALL-E, to create a suitable image.

You enter the prompt: “red balloon against a blue sky” but the generator returns an image of an egg instead. You try again but this time, the generator shows an image of a watermelon.

What’s going on?

The generator you’re using may have been “poisoned”.

Read the whole article here.