12 posts tagged “unconventional”
This morning, residents of the Big Apple were treated to 1.2 million copies of a free newspaper:
New York Times "Special Edition" site.
The date of this prank was pushed back so as to not interfere with the election. As I've mentioned before, The Yes Men are available for hire as educators in media literacy.
As always, this prank was executed with professionalism and flair.
An excerpt:
Court Indicts Bush on High Treason Charge
WASHINGTON (AP) — George W. Bush, the 43rd President of the United States, was indicted Monday on charges of high treason. The charges, filed by Attorney General Russ Feingold late in the evening, allege that Mr. Bush, knowing full well that Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction, falsified information in order to pursue the disastrous Iraq War. (See “U.S. Knew No W.M.D.s in Iraq,” on Page A1.)
The former President appeared perturbed by his own charges against him. (GAVIN BELLOWS/BOSTON GLOBE)
Related Post: Unconventional Activism: Vivoleum™ (Yes Men, 2007)
Related Post: Unconventional Activism: SurvivaBall™ (Yes Men, 2006)
UPDATE: November 07, 2008 This is not to be confused with the apparently for-reals Bouncy House and Life Cube.
(This is over a year old, but bears reiterating in light of recent Vivoleum prank)
The Yes Men were contacted to address the "Catastrophic Loss" conference at the Ritz-Carlton in Amelia Island, Florida, in May of 2006. They were contacted via their (now defunct) spoof website halliburton-contracts.com.
They attended, posing as representatives from Halliburton, and announced a revolutionary product called SurvivaBall™.
More photos, video animations, and the presentation transcript are available here (it's hard to find.)
The Yes Men website
Democracy Now! coverage of SurvivaBall from Friday, May 12, 2006
Related Post: Unconventional Activism: Vivoleum™ (Yes Men, 2007)
UPDATE: My favorite merry pranksters are to unveil an anti-war event of some sort before the election. They are soliciting funds and seeking participants in the New York City area. A new film is apparently on the way.
The Yes Men infiltrated the "Go Expo" conference in Calgary in June 2007, after being contacted through their fake Exxon website. They announced a revolutionary new energy process and fuel product, accompanied by a slick presentation, back story, and props. They were ejected eventually, but not before making their point. The Yes Men are available for hire as educators in media literacy.
Watch The Yes Men on Bill Moyers Journal July 2007
on Democracy Now! May 2006
Yes Men on Wikipedia
Andy Bichlbaum on Wikipedia
Mike Bonanno on Wikipedia
Someone should invent a culture jamming prize and award it to these guys, their proxies, subsidiaries or holding companies.
Related Post::Unconventional Activism: SurvivaBall™ (Yes Men, 2006)
I think my solution is supported on more hardware - Capslockinska Popoff
Wonderful cast and song; the security guard was excellent.
The audience seemed to agree.
Troublemakers have published an Irish Catholic website containing a blasphemous video and a link to the Irish Atheists
page.
anywhere near the cable car turn-around & Westfield Center (Powell & Market)
Alternate title: Unconventional Author: William T. Vollmann
I haven't read this book yet, but I did hear Mr. Vollmann discuss it recently on KQED's Forum with Michael Krasny. In 2006, John Hodgman mined the subject of Hobos to great effect in his tongue-in-cheek opus The Areas of My Expertise, and a Google search on hobo+hodgman yields related projects, such as the 700 Hobo names and Illustrations.
In contrast, Riding Toward Everywhere is an unflinching, nonfiction work that documents his latest effort in participatory social anthropology (for lack of a better term.)
Vollmann is a relentlessly curious, endlessly sensitive, and unequivocally adventurous examiner of human existence. He has investigated the causes and symptoms of humanity's obsession with violence (Rising Up and Rising Down), taken a personal look into the hearts and minds of the world's poorest inhabitants (Poor People), and now turns his attentions to America itself, to our romanticizing of "freedom" and the ways in which we restrict the very freedoms we profess to admire.
For Riding Toward Everywhere, Vollmann himself takes to the rails. His main accomplice is Steve, a captivating fellow trainhopper who expertly accompanies him through the secretive waters of this particular way of life. Vollmann describes the thrill and terror of lying in a trainyard in the dark, avoiding the flickering flashlights of the railroad bulls; the shockingly, gorgeously wild scenery of the American West as seen from a grainer platform; the complicated considerations involved in trying to hop on and off a moving train. It's a dangerous, thrilling, evocative examination of this underground lifestyle, and it is, without a doubt, one of Vollmann's most hauntingly beautiful narratives.
Todo: define the term "faux-bo" in the Urban Dictionary:
Vollmann's honesty, courage and aplomb are remarkable. He gracefully deals with questions and concerns regarding illegal or unsafe behavior, but at the same time does not let social conventions interfere with his work. His answer to Dave Iverson's question about smoking crack in order to document its effect was classic:faux-bo: Shortened form of "faux hobo"
A person who engages in part-time train hopping to experience the thrill of living the "underground" hobo life.
Such a person visits the underground pretending to live there.A bunch of faux-bos were already in the boxcar, but they didn't know enough to bring sleeping bags.
David, if I told you that I had smoked crack, you might think I was a bad person, and if I told you that I hadn't smoked crack you might be disappointed.
That sort of answer is a really inspired way to deal with a thorny issue. While not answering directly, he clarifies the reason he can't answer, but gives you enough to infer the "truth." To paraphrase:
David, society is not honest enough to allow me to answer that sort of question. Kids, say no to drugs! And don't ask your parents if they ever used them!
SHOPDROP: To covertly place merchandise on display in a store.
A form of "culture jamming" - reverse shoplift, droplift.
Read more on the Shopdropping Site.
As defined by Ryan Watkins-Hughes:
SHOPDROPPING is an ongoing project in which I alter the packaging of canned goods and then shopdrop the items back onto grocery store shelves. I replace the packaging with labels created using my photographs. The shopdropped works act as a series of art objects that people can purchase from the grocery store. Because the barcodes and price tags are left intact purchasing the cans before they are discovered and removed is possible. In one instance the shopdropped cans were even restocked to a new aisle based on the barcode information.
