Introduction
Performers, Provocateurs, Pranksters, Philosophers, Interventionists, Reality Hackers – why we need them as a foil to the media spectacle
Hoaxers
Improv Everywhere, Alan Abel, and Charlie Todd practice the fine art of the media hoax and the urban prank
Culture Jamming
The Guerrilla Girls and Dyke Action Machine use Graphic media to insinuate themselves into public space
The Situationists
Re-appropriating media and reclaiming public space in the work of the Billboard Liberation Front, The Surveillance Camera Players, and the Institute for Infinitely Small Things
Performance
The practice of agit-prop theater and performance art are found in the work of The Living Theater, Bread and Puppet, and Czech performance artist Milan Kahout
Epilogue/Credits
THE INTRODUCTION
The opening quote by Jean Baudrillard quote describes what is at stake: we are becoming products of our mediated environment and servants to ‘spectacle’.
It’s the book which reads me.
It’s the TV which watches you.
It’s the object which thinks us.
It’s the lens which focuses on us.
It’s the effect which causes us.
It’s language which speaks us.
It’s time which wastes us.
It’s money which earns us.
It’s death which lies in wait for us.
To find a rationale for the work of Radical Jesters (variously called Provocateurs, Pranksters, Interventionists, and Reality Hackers) there are many great theorists and even philosophers worth considering. Guy Debord, Marshall McLuhan, Harold Innis, Neil Postman are a good place to start. Here is a selection of quotes to think about as you watch these Radical Jesters.
“The very definition of the real becomes: that of which it is possible to give an equivalent reproduction. The real is not only what can be reproduced, but that which is always already reproduced. The hyper real.”
Jean Baudrillard
“Plagiarism is necessary. Progress implies it. It embraces an author’s phrase, makes use of his expressions, erases a false idea, and replaces it with the right idea.”
Guy Debord
“All media exist to invest our lives with artificial perceptions and arbitrary values.”
“When you are on the phone or on the air, you have no body.”
Marshall McLuhan
Upon seeing Time Square’s array of lights and advertisements for the first time, George Bernard Shaw said;
“It must be beautiful, if you cannot read”
Quoted in ‘Amusing Ourselves To Death’ by Neil Postman
“Quotations are useful in periods of ignorance or obscurantist beliefs.”
Guy Debord
HOAXERS
John Hargrave, Alan Abel, and Charlie Todd’s Improv Everywhere practice the fine art of the media hoax and the urban prank. Each puts a unique spin on the work they do while opening a space between what is real and what we imagine as real.
“Sir” John Hargrave finds holes in the system and sneaks through by developing insidious and ingenious pranks. His website Zug.com has created a community devoted to pranks, comic ideas, and an all over good time. His book Prank the Monkey is a practical handbook of Pranks.
Alan Abel comes from a long tradition of comedy and non-conformity. “I never keep a job more than 2 years – it’s not good for you” is part of his philosophy. Abel is one of the longest running hoaxers in the country with roots back to the beat era. He has worked with people like Robert Downey Sr. and Buck Henry. His stunts are enormously clever and outrageous. He is an accomplished composer, drummer, motivational speaker and with his wife and partner Jeanne has written several books and made two films. Jenny Abel’s great film about her father’s life is called Abel Raises Cain.
Charlie Todd’s Improv Everywhere is made for the Internet age. Their ’flash mob’ events are thrilling and enlivening. Unlike a superficial Flash Mob, participants are straight faced and do not document their own work in order to blend with the reality of everyday. Their spiffy website and growing success are testament to their imagination and devoted following. Radical Jesters introduces a few early events, but the work of Improv Everywhere is growing and going global.
CULTURE JAMMING
The Guerrilla Girls and Dyke Action Machine use Graphic media to insinuate themselves into public space. The term “culture jamming was coined by Kalle Lasn in the book Culture Jam. Lassn , the founder of the anti-consumerist magazine Adbusters, is on a mission to intervene in the media spectacle and work against our habits of blind consumerism.
Dyke Action and the Guerrilla Girls are actually more militant than traditional culture jammers.
Dyke Action, along with groups such as Gran Fury, Fierce Pussy, Lesbian Avengers, and ACT UP confront serious lesbian and gay issues.
The Guerrilla Girls have become renown not only for posters and slogans, but for lectures, public appearances, and books protesting women’s representation as both artists and as subjects. Their work touches on global issues and is concerned with the oppression of women worldwide.
THE SITUATIONISTS
Re-appropriating media and reclaiming public space is central to the activities of the Surveillance Camera Players, the Institute for Infinitely Small Things, and the Billboard Liberation Front.
Each of these groups is Situationist in their intent.
Under the self proclaimed leadership of French writer and Marxist theorist Guy Debord, The Situationist International began in 1957 and disbanded in 1972 . In the tradition of Dada, Fluxus, Surrealism, collage art and appropriation the Situationists worked in opposition to what is now well-known as “The Society of the Spectacle”. Greil Marcus’s “Lipstick Traces” looks closely at the Sex Pistols as a Situationist act. The music of “Gang of Four” artfully practiced Situationist ideas. Gang of Four singer Jon King appears briefly in Radical Jesters and was enormously helpful in understanding the movement. Their song “Why Theory” closes the film.
Bill Brown of the Surveillance Camera Players is a prolific spokesman for Situationist ideas. His “Not Bored” site contains numerous writings on the movement. In his extended interview (at RadicalJesters.com) he explains ideas central to Situationist activity: psychogeography, the Dérive and the Détournement.
Psychogeography
is the “emotional effect” of the “geographical environment”
The Dérive
is the means by which psychogeography is made tangible and dynamic. It is an aimless drifting or walking through urban spaces. This purposeless journeying allows us to really discover our environment. The Surveillance Camera Players, the Institute for Infinitely Small Things are literal practitioners of the Dérive.
Détournement involves “re-appropriating” art, media, even ideas; it repurposes and transforms cultural objects and messages. All the groups labeled here as Situationist practice détournement in unique, specific ways
The Surveillance Camera Players ‘ repurpose New York’s public surveillance cameras for theatrical performance.
The Institute for Infinitely Small Things has a varied and brilliant range of work for investigating both public space and language. Their website and their philosophy go much deeper than what we can show here. The website http://www.ikatun.com/institute/infinitelysmallthings/ provides insight into the assortment of their activities.
Ron English, ‘Jack Napier” and the Billboard Liberation Front of San Francisco repurpose billboards with ideas that make us stop, look, and think. From their website;
“Each time you change the Advertising message in your own mind, whether you climb up onto the board and physically change the original copy and graphics or not, each time you improve the message, you enter in to the High Priesthood of Advertisers.
Institute for Infinitely Small Things are perhaps the most scientific of the Situationists. They embody what Guy Debord called:
“A science of situations to be created, which will borrow elements from psychology, statistics, urbanism, and ethics. These elements have top coincide in an absolutely new goal: the conscious creation of new situations”
PERFORMANCE
Performance Art and Street Theater are probably the oldest and purest of radical art forms. Performance Art may have started with Diogenes of Sinope and the 20th and 21st centuries includes “Aktionism”, Happenings, Fluxus Art, and performances on stages, museums, galleries, and in the streets. It is global in scope. The artists are as varied as Allan Kaprow, Chris Burden, Yoko Ono, George Brecht, The Kipper Kids, Gibert and George, Carolee Schneemann, and Laurie Anderson.
The performance art of Czechoslovakian Milan Kahout is staunchly political. Like his contemporaries in the global performance art movement it takes an infinite variety of forms and takes on many ideas.
Two of the oldest active political theater groups in America are The Living Theater and Bread and Puppet . Both have maintained their vision and commitment to social change and questioning of the status quo. The record of their work is documented in films, books, and in an incredible history of performances in cities and auditoriums throughout the world. We close with these two groups. The Living Theater was founded in 1951 by Julian Beck and Judith Malina. Bread and Puppet was started by Peter Schumman in the early 1960’s. Both are essential the tradition of the Radical Jester and to the primacy of theater as a place for communal experience.
EPILOGUE AND CREDITS
The epilogue offers creative solutions to the opening salvo. These “Radical Jesters” provide essential critique of contemporary society blended with humor. We laugh and it opens our minds to think. Listed here are a small sample of individuals whose activities are worth looking at further. V. Vales “PRANKS” books offer up numerous other examples of interesting Radical Jesters and performers
Abbie Hoffman and Paul Krassner are important figures in America’s cultural history – wise and very funny.
Michael Moore’s ‘agit-prop’ personal filmmaking has brought about significant changes and fostered many discussions on a variety of issues.
Morgan Spurlock (Supersize Me) puts himself in his investigations to great success and effect.
John Waters’ films have moved fringe culture mainstream.
Joey Skaggs is smart, organized, and brilliant. His outlandish pranks always shed a light on the credibility of the media, the public, and of authority. His site pranks.com is the best place to keep current
The Yes Men – well, see the films. What they do is tactical, bold, and amazing.
Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping is an entertainer performance artist who rails religiously against rampant consumerism. His book and his film are called “What Would Jesus Buy?”
Adbusters is a regular publication from the author of “Culture Jam: The Uncooling of America”
Banksy and Shepard Fairey are slowly moving from street art to galleries and museums. Yet they continue to pose important questions about the uses of public space, appropriation and copyright.
Credits
Radical Jesters would not be possible without the cooperation of all subjects themselves and their archives, filmmakers DeeDee Halleck, Pedro Carvajal, and Adam Gooder.
Special thanks to The New England Institute of Art and to my students who made many contributions to the project in many ways over the last few years.
Special mention to Gang of Four for the closing song “Why Theory”. And to my good pal and fellow drummer Hugo Burnam without whom my work life would suffer.
Why Theory?
Lyrics
People got their opinions
Where do they come from?
Each day seems like a natural fact
And what we think changes how we act
People got opinions
Where do they come from?
Distant blood of ruvvies
Won’t discover money come on
Each day seems like a natural fact
And what we think changes how we act
So to change ideas
Change is what we do
Too much thinking makes me ill
I think I’ll have another gin
A few more drinks it’ll be alright
Each day seems like a natural fact
And what we think changes how we act
Each day seems like a natural fact
