Culture Jamming...

I thought of a couple more possible examples of culture jamming… One is UK graffiti artist Banksy, who plays around with a lot of images from art and popular culture and mainly critiques capitalism, government and basically the establishment in general. He also pulled off a prank a couple of years ago where he replaced hundreds of Paris Hilton singles in music stores with fake cds that parodied her image. His artworks do raise some pretty valid points, but I’m a bit skeptical about how effective culture jamming can really be at eliciting change or getting people to take a look at themselves and their lives. For example, I doubt that the manipulated ipod advertisements shown in Thursday’s workshop made anyone think twice about having one (I still really want one). I kind of agree with the idea that, because culture jamming in the form of parody is a reaction and reworks existing imagery, it does not offer anything new and possibly even reinforces the status quo.

Another example I thought of was from a documentary I saw a couple of years ago called The Yes Men. Has anyone else seen it? It was about a couple of guys who make fake websites for government organisations and corporations, satirising them and highlighting social injustices they perpetrate. It was a really interesting and funny film, but I think that the kinds of people who would watch the film or be amused by their pranks already agree with their arguments anyway, ie they're sort of preaching to the converted...