Culture Jamming - The Art of the Prank

November 1, 2019December 15, 2023

Homo Velamine Interviews Joey Skaggs “Maestro of the Farce” [Spanish and English]

Spanish Art and Activism Collective Homo Velamine Interviews Joey Skaggs [Spanish and English]

Joey Skaggs: “A fool is a fool, no matter what their political leaning is”
by Demófila Martínez and Luis Platypus
Homo Velamine
October 31, 2019

Joey Skaggs. PHOTO: Sam Ortiz for Observer

Homo Velamine: The increase of fake news in the media in recent years makes us feel that the limits between fact and fiction are more unclear than ever. In the documentary Art of the Prank (2015), you let the viewer peek into the creative process behind one of your hoaxes. The trickiest part seems to be deciding how far you can take it, without crossing the limits of plausibility and creating something that is impossible to believe. After all these years, does it still surprise you how far this limit can actually be pushed? Which of your performances would you say has pushed this limit the farthest and still has been successful?

Joey Skaggs: Pushing the limits of plausibility is the fun part for me. I create the problem and I create the solution. I take a gamble that what I’m doing is so ridiculous that no one’s going to believe it. I want it to be totally absurd because if the news media does fall for it, it will be even funnier and more effective in revealing their gullibility and/or hypocrisy. Continue reading “Homo Velamine Interviews Joey Skaggs “Maestro of the Farce” [Spanish and English]”

May 3, 2019December 15, 2023

Michael De Feo’s Flowers

I love telling success stories about my former SVA students. I now have the opportunity to boast about Michael De Feo. His book, “Michael De Feo: Flowers“, was just released by Abrams Books.

Michael De Feo’s dedication and singularity in the use of his iconic flower image has taken him on a creative adventure of self-discovery in a very public arena.

Michael paints flowers on walls and other public spaces. He has also appropriated advertisements, transforming them, much like billboard liberators, taggers, and graffiti artists do, to dramatically change one message to another. His choice to violate these public spaces with his decorative flowers has great irony. It’s non-threatening. One could paint bullet holes. Michael paints flowers. Bullet holes are obvious. You don’t have to think much about the message. But a flower…

The greater irony is that Michael’s work has now been appropriated by the advertisers whose campaigns he altered because of the positive attention he brings to their work. From my perspective, Michael has created a new meaning to the phrase “flower power.”

July 12, 2018December 15, 2023

Trump Gets a Sign From Above

Don’t look down Mr. Trump.

Trump To Be Greeted In England By 650-Foot Crop Circle With A Very Rude Message
by Ed Mazza
Huffington Post
July 12, 2018

Massive message should be visible from the left window of the president’s chopper on Friday.

President Donald Trump may not want to look out the window as he passes over the English countryside later this week.

An artist has turned part of a field at Moat Farm in Stoke Mandeville into a 650-foot crop circle with “Fuck Trump” written in Russian, according to local newspaper Bucks Herald.

The Herald said the crop circle should be visible from the president’s chopper as he flies to a meeting with Prime Minister Theresa May at Chequers, the premier’s country home.

Read the rest of this article here.

July 12, 2018December 15, 2023

It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, Nope… It’s Trump Baby Balloon

Fun interview with Leo Murray, creator of the Trump Baby Balloon that will fly over London’s Parliament building to greet President Trump in London on July 13, 2018. Although, Trumps’ handlers plan to keep him far away.

‘Trump Baby’: Meet the Mind Behind the Inflatable Infant Set to Greet Trump on London Trip
by Chantal Da Silva and Chiara Brambilla
Newsweek
July 10, 2018

When London activist Leo Murray first came up with the idea to put a 20-foot “Trump Baby” blimp in the sky in time for President Donald Trump’s trip to Britain this week, he never could have anticipated just how well the plan would take off.

Trump baby / Leo Murray

Within weeks, an online fundraiser aiming to generate £5,000 to help fly the giant balloon reached more than £28,500 in donations. The blimp, which depicts Trump as an angry smartphone-wielding infant, will be floating outside the Palace of Westminster on Friday.

Watch the interview with Leo Murray here:
http://www.newsweek.com/b3b85d32-9593-4a25-87f6-8dcd2a591673

“This has wildly exceeded my expectations,” Murray, 41, told Newsweek. The British activist said his Trump Baby balloon has not only “captured something of the essence of the president’s character,” but has also managed to encapsulate an important moment in Trump’s presidency. Continue reading “It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, Nope… It’s Trump Baby Balloon”

July 10, 2018December 15, 2023

Cold as I.C.E.

Art Collective Indecline and cartoonist Rob Rogers writ large.

Bay Area Protests Trump’s Child Detention Policy with Billboard and Projection
Hyperallergic
by Benjamin Sutton
June 21, 2018

A clandestine modification of a junk removal billboard and a nighttime projection of a political cartoon called out the president’s family separation policy.

Is the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) advertising its brutal practice of separating migrant families? If you were driving along Interstate 80 in California’s East Bay last night or early this morning, you might have seen what appeared to be a billboard for ICE flaunting its inhumane expertise — “We make kids disappear” — alongside the Munchian image of a shocked and screaming child.

The ignoble advertisement is in fact the work of satiric and shadowy public art collective Indecline, whose members scaled the billboard (which formerly promoted 1-800-Got-Junk?’s ability to “make junk disappear”) in the night and transformed it into a provocative indictment of ICE. At the time this article was published, a spokesperson for Indecline said that the modified billboard was still in place.