Manic_Skafe

I find their most of their anti-advertising tactics to be effective simply because they're mostly centered upon forcing people to consciously consider what they're spending their money on and what those choices perpetuate.

The typical jammer argument is that far too many major corporations are yearly spending billions on adverts with the hopes of buying up all of the real estate in our minds. Essentially, planting seeds with their slogans, catch-phrases and brand names. And every few years we slip from one demographic into another.

"According to the book Fast Food Nation (2001), 96% of school children in the United States can identify Ronald McDonald, making him the United States' most recognized fast food advertising icon. Only Santa Claus was more commonly recognized..."

If the words "Skinny ≠ Beautiful" scrawled on a poster can cause a teenage girl to seriously consider why none of the teen models in her issue of J-14 resemble most of the girls she knows then I find it to be pretty damn effective.

Dropping out of "the system" by earning less is essentially a major step in culture jamming but it is far from the final frontier. The ideas that are stressed the most are lessening our global footprint as a species, taking care of our bodies and minds, spending less time at work and more time doing what we love and being with whom we love - these are all universal themes that almost anyone can identify with.

And they're also far from original.

__________________
"Porn is a zoo of exotic animals that becomes boring upon ownership." -Nersesian

JumpinJesus

Some people spend their entire lives never thinking about things beyond the superficial. Some people spend their lives as part of the machine never realizing they're nothing more than a cog. I once heard these people described as walnuts in the batter of eternity. Others think that things are worth changing and are actually willing to take the step to do something. It may be misguided, it may even be futile, but in the end, at least they can say they did something.

__________________
"I can normally tell how intelligent a man is by how stupid he thinks I am" - Cormac McCarthy, All The Pretty Horses

Charlatan

While I can completely appreciate where you are coming from with this, I just can help feeling that it sounds extremely condescending.

What does it mean when you suggest that, "Some people spend their lives as part of the machine never realizing they're nothing more than a cog?" What would you suggest is better than being a "cog" and what form would this take in daily life?

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

JumpinJesus

The reason that advertising works so well is its saturation and repetitive nature. We learn slogans and jingles because we're exposed to them to the point of near saturation. We have positive or negative attitudes towards products based upon how we react to a particular ad campaign. Think about how a bad news story or a particularly funny advertisement can affect a business. Remember the diet candies that came out in the late 70s? They were extremely popular for a few years, and then quite quickly were removed from the market because people refused to buy them.



Instances like the Sony photo I posted attempt to work in the same manner. Naturally, culture-jammers have neither the funds nor the exposure to get their message out to the extent that the marketers do, so they use what they can. However, if enough people get out and perform the same actions and enough billboards are altered in the same fashion, then the same message becomes ingrained. One billboard by 2 or 3 people won't be effective, just as one advertisement in one market won't be effective, this is why culture jamming takes a more organized approach in order for it to be effective.

It's about changing people's perceptions. If you don't remember, the name of the diet candy was AYDS.

__________________
"I can normally tell how intelligent a man is by how stupid he thinks I am" - Cormac McCarthy, All The Pretty Horses

Ustwo

The ultimate culture jammer.

Still, no one has answered exactly what the big deal is. You can deface signs, I can have nice thing while raising my great kids, with my culturally beautiful wife, helping hundreds of people at my job.

They defaced a sign, they did NOTHING, but annoy the signs owner and make the guy who makes replacement signs happy.

So lets see corporations bring me luxuries and services at affordable prices and cultural jammers give me graffiti .....

I'm still trying to get how ones a problem and ones a hero.

BTW I'd start by using a non-corporate created computer to post your response in a non-corporate infrastructured internet.

You know whats really ironic about this whole thing is I'm thinking about how I can make an affordable add campaign for my brand new corporation in order to let the community know about my services. I was thinking 'the swinging dentist' might not be a good start, but I'll work on it.

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JumpinJesus

What I meant by it is that every human being has the potential to be the agent for great change, to leave the world in a better place than they left it, but that too many never realize their potential.

Corporations don't exist for the betterment of society. They exist to create wealth for themselves. That's fine. People who work for those corporations fool themselves if they believe they are working for the greater good. They're working to create wealth for the corporation. If at any moment they cease to create wealth for the corporation, they are let go. This is what I mean by calling them cogs in the machine. If that's their choice, then that's fine for them. It's not fine for me. I firmly believe that by subjugating their lives to the betterment of an entity that does not reciprocate, they are denying their ability to truly contribute their true worth to humanity.

My belief is that some people do this and feel helpless to change. Other people do this and do it happily. While still others never even give it a thought.

__________________
"I can normally tell how intelligent a man is by how stupid he thinks I am" - Cormac McCarthy, All The Pretty Horses

Manic_Skafe

They defaced a sign and forced you to actually think about it.

What more could they ever hope to accomplish?

__________________
"Porn is a zoo of exotic animals that becomes boring upon ownership." -Nersesian

dc_dux

Need dental work?

Us too

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

JumpinJesus

I sometimes wonder if you're replies are obtuse by design or accident. Why you labor under the idea that your failure to understand or approve of a concept makes it worthless makes discussion with you circular at best, which I suppose is why you stick mostly to one-liner replies.

__________________
"I can normally tell how intelligent a man is by how stupid he thinks I am" - Cormac McCarthy, All The Pretty Horses

Ustwo

You haven't said ANYTHING worthy of more.

Defacing signs is juvenile, pointless, if caught a really stupid thing to do, and I'm shocked that an adult would think it does anything but make them look juvenile.

Any half wit can spray paint a sign, some of the more creative ones can make it even amusing but it does absolutely nothing. Its not culture jamming, its counter culture bull that only seems meaningful if you already agree with whatever point they were trying to make.

I'm far more impressed with people who can take an idea for a company and make it into a multinational power house, creating 1000's of jobs, jobs that employ the parents of kids who think they are being radicals because they did something like this gem..



I can clearly see the concept behind it, but its execution and effectivness is laughable.

Its a Sisyphian task only unlike Sisyphus who was forced into pointless effort, people think they are somehow better than the 'cogs' because they expanded our minds and did something.

A single consumer reports website is worth more than every underemployed kid who thinks their destruction of private property is meaningful, just, and not just something to do while high.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

jewels

Heck yeah! The reason they stopped selling is they tasted so good, you ate them all in one day, so they didn't work

I get your point and understand the movement's purpose. I just don't think it's effective. Defaced signs will be de-grafittied (?) or replaced before they'll have a chance to have had much impact. Too bad there's no way to sabotage TV ads and keep them running.

Anyway, thought this was good. Don't know that it'll deter anyone from using FedEx ...

__________________
We are always more anxious to be distinguished for a talent which we do not possess, than to be praised for the fifteen which we do possess.
Mark Twain

Plan9

I don't know? Voting? Not going home to their mom's basement to play their $800 Playstation 3?

The big problem I have with the above statement is that a lot of us already think.

We already know Starbucks is overpriced yuppie goof-fuel.

"If you just paid $8 for a mediocre cookie-cutter latte... you just got Star-fucked!"

We already know The GAP consists of shoddy slave-labor clothes sold at 400% markup.

"The only Gap is the one in your wallet after you buy their shitty clothes."

We already know that catchy jingles are designed to get us to memorize product placement plots.

Despite the fact that I often think there should be a "life lottery" to rid the planet of at least 50% of the dumbasses walking it's surface... the other 50% are just as smart as anybody who reads at this forum. That half of the population knows and feels the same way you do.

It doesn't even take a genius. I'm definitely not one and I don't really cow-tow to any corporate marketing bullshit. I drive a cheap domestic vehicle based on technical stats, wear clothes that come from a god-damn grocery store, and eat generic cereal and canned tuna because it's cheap and healthier than the zillion dollars of fast food advertising that can't hide the fact that their slop will kill you from the inside in only a few years.

Turns out you're not a rebel just because you don't like the system.

...

Hah, it's funny how many "rebels" have a closet full of fancy name brand clothes.

So what stereotype does the graffiti artist or sign-defacer fall into?

Poor, urban, dark-skinned, misguided?

That should be the real target.

No, wait, that would be "terrorism."

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

abaya

I just wanted to say that of all the posts so far, I liked this quote a lot. It applies to so many people in my life (as well as myself, once upon a time)... lots of good intentions, still going to hell.

JJ, to be honest, the way you explain culture-jamming reminds me a bit of the futility of Fight Club's Project Mayhem. Lots of sturm und drang, but no real change.

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

Charlatan

If awareness of the message was enough... we would have seen change by now.

The way I see it, consumer culture loves and adores rebellion. In fact counterculture is what feeds the mainstream with new and cool ideas. Culture cannot be jammed.

A book you should read: The Rebel Sell

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

filtherton

I plan on being "counter culture" by getting a decent paying job, paying off my debts, and living in moderation. I'm punk rock.

JumpinJesus

Yeah, as I read back over it, I realize that my explanations aren't the best.

Culture jamming isn't just altering billboards, even though it seems the majority of this thread seems to revolve around defining it as such. It's more involved than that. Culture jamming includes music, films, art, and many other creative outlets.

The Ramones were culture jammers, as were The Clash and just about every other punk band in existence in the late 70s.

Andy Warhol is viewed as a culture jammer.

Lenny Bruce was a culture jammer. Andy Kaufman was a culture jammer.

I bring up these names because of Charlatan's comment that culture cannot be jammed. I disagree. The fact that what was once considered fringe and obscene has become mainstream. That's exactly what culture jamming is. To say it's a failure because it's mainstream doesn't make sense to me. To me, that's proof that it's successful.

I hope that makes it a little more clear.

__________________
"I can normally tell how intelligent a man is by how stupid he thinks I am" - Cormac McCarthy, All The Pretty Horses

Charlatan

I added the bold part.

JJ, what you are describing is more counter culture than culture jamming per se. While they both can stem from the same origins they are ultimately two different things based on the part I have bolded in the quote above.

However, regardless of the intent, I still suggest that mass, consumer culture thrives on the inventiveness of counter culture. Counter culture is the farm team for the mainstream.

All of those who would envisage themselves as being counter culture in an effort to change "the system" (and the existence of a "system" is highly suspect to me) should have a long look at how consumer trends are created. There is a reason why punk is embraced by the mainstream these days and it is the same reason that haute couture eventually makes its way into JC Penny.

If you want to destroy consumer capitalism, the way to do it is to redically conform. Stop being a trendsetter. Stop being cool. Stop buying into the bleeding edge of culture. You are just feeding the cycle.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

Plan9

Your response was spot on with how I feel about "trendies."

Reminds me of that Cake song, "You Turn The Screws."

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

Ustwo

Excellent analogy, I'll be quoting this at some point claiming it as my own in conversation.

I don't think even this would work. Not being cool would be the new cool and looking not cool would be available for 50% off at Kohls.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

Charlatan

When I suggest you should radically conform, I am thinking worst distopian vision... all of us in the same coverall, wearing the same brand of boot.

There would be no difference in apparel. There would be no fashion. There would be no novelty.

This is a highly impractical solution.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

Charlatan

I just wanted to add... that despite my feelings about the effectiveness about Culture Jamming... I find that it makes for great art.

I love the play with cultural icons. I like how meaning can be cleverly changed. Some of the things I have seen are put art. Some are just clever.

My issue is simply that I don't think culture can be jammed.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

roachboy

interesting thread.

personally, i am of two minds about this....

i'm not sure that warhol is a good example of culture jamming. the jokes involved with the nature of his work are too inside, the repetition too close to repetition. but you can look at it as a demonstrating *the* problem with the tactic, which charlatan and--gasp--ustwo have pointed out: well two of them:

(a) warhol's series can be seen as a parody of commodity series, of mass produced images, but that are commodities in the sense that they were themselves mass produced images. that's the whole idea of the factory. most of his techniques derive from his background as a commercial painter. they *are* what they are making fun of.

(b) lots of advertising relies on the mocking of advertising to advertise itself as a way of advertising its product.

on the other hand, i like detournement and think that more people should do it more often.

the situationists used this tactic to great effect--they were a huge influence on the way in which the mai 68 in paris unfolded, it's politics and its look. they are the archetype hovering behind the tactic--given the proper situation (sorry) these meta-objects can be of a piece with generating the space to think and act radically differently within a commodity-dominated context.

absent that situation, though, détournement (culture jamming) is probably best understood as the wiki thing says--ephemeral protest actions directed against a commodity spectacle that effectively colonizes even your dreams. think about it: much dream material comes from perceptual data that you filter out, that you in a sense register but which your ability to focus visually shunts to the side---how this works only is paradoxical or curious if you really believe that perception is skullbound (it isn't)...so dreaming is recycling is the generation of "unauthorized" combinations is détournement.

so your unconscious lives are commodity fields.
your fantasies are commodity fields.
your thinking then is repetition.
taken to a limit, it follows that thinking is not thinking at all.

is that accurate?
depends (tm)

will détournement free you?
probably not.

does that mean it is a waste of time?
why would that follow?
nothing to be done, just accept it, you are the colonized, you dream as you are told, nearly.
or little to be done, you are the colonized, but the fact that your dreaming generates gaps or holes in the commodity field makes of dreaming a little space of autonomy.

people get blasé about the cultural environments they move through--if that environment is characterized by saturations of certain types of imagery, then that imagery becomes like wallpaper and who fights wallpaper?
people also confuse aging with accomodation with acquiescence with wisdom.
people think alot of goofy things.

maybe there are no general statements to be made about whether jamming is or is not "effective" because the point of it is in the doing and not in the reception.
maybe looking for someone else to help bump you out of the world of dancing signifiers that move across the giant simulacrum is not much different from not looking for someone else to help bump out out of the world of dancing signifiers that move across the giant simulacrum.

maybe asking "does it work" on spectators is missing the point entirely.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

jewels

Thanks, as always, for the new spin, RB.

I borrowed this book from my daughter's boyfriend and actually look forward to reading it now.

__________________
We are always more anxious to be distinguished for a talent which we do not possess, than to be praised for the fifteen which we do possess.
Mark Twain

Ustwo

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

roachboy

o wait--i get this clever point: the book is a commodity so it can't possibly critique commodity culture!
wow ustwo!
you're the first EVER to notice this one!
amazing!
a genius!
what's the point of even THINKING in oppositional terms when we are up against Insights that?
it never occurred to ANYONE who writes and publishes critical work that their books and articles are ALSO commodities!

cheese louise: what were we all thinking?


be careful diving about in the shallow end of the pool, comrade: you might hurt yourself.
it's better to dive into deeper water.
just a safety tip.
because i care so much, i give and give and give.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Ustwo

I think if you filtered out the snarky you might learn something in your own posting.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

roachboy

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Cynthetiq

I don't see it as much different than "smart" vandalism. I believe that the jammers are just as egotistical as the rest of the machine.

If the culture moves more internet, is "culture jamming" DDOS attacks to advertising servers? hacks to photos replacing them with snarky comments under their logos?

at what point does it cross the line from brand comparison which is fair to brand destruction which is unfair?

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roachboy

well, in some ways it isn't.
obviously, anyone's position on this is not free-standing--it is of a piece with broader political and aesthetic positions. if you are politically inclined to find strategies of branding to be hunky dory, then you probably won't be doing this kind of action in any event. the questions that follow from this statement in your post all lean on your political commitments.

if i or anyone else doesn't share those commitments, then they are all moot, really.

for example, you might argue that the space a particular advertiser purchases access to is private--but what is placed there impacts on public space. if it didn't, it wouldn't be there: the point is to impact on a public which passes, and so advertisement is designed to intrude on space that is NOT owned. so you have a question of the rights of an advertiser to intrude on public space from a position that is in itself privately owned as over against the right of the public to not be intruded upon. whether someone chooses to invoke this conflict or to act on the basis of it or not is a political question in general---as it the right to ownership itself, if you think about it---but whether someone chooses to act on the basis of such an argument is more or less random (unpredictable)

i figure you put the adverts up you take your chances.
i have no problem at all with defacing such---i just personally am so constructed that i think of good ideas after i've seen a potential target and usually forget about the whole thing before i act. i think it's good that others are differently wired.

it's not like any of these actions if going to bring about revolution--it's just nice to see advertising made into a political act by having political actions taken against particular examples.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Charlatan

In terms of the battle against ad creep... this blog features the efforts of a group in Toronto that seeks to have illegal ads and billboards removed from the streets of Toronto: illegalsigns.ca

Rather than engage in playful detournment, he is actually working the system to get illegal billboards removed. To me, this is much more effective in terms of real impact (tm).

(note: the placement of illegal and non-conforming billboards in Toronto is rampant)

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

Cynthetiq

I'm all for that. I'm all for creating laws that restrict how advertisements are placed all over the place here in NYC. Recently MTA filled the subway stations with massive amounts of advertisements to help budget shortfalls. I'm surprised that they don't start wrapping the trains like they do the buses.

In the city it's all noise, all noise trying to get out over the noise. So you culture jam something, you're just making more noise.

When they drape buildings some people don't get compensated for losing their windows, so they cut out window holes. One beer company made a play on it in Times Square stating they won something and you could see them drinking the beer in the window cutout.

NYC has wheatpaste problems where people post bills all over the place, even when it's posted to state "Post No Bills". Guerilla marketers staple hip hop record releases on street poles. These are all illegal and should be dealt with legally, not via vandalism.

Last year there was a "culture jammer" who was splashing all the graffitti art around the city. The graffitti group was all up in arms over it. Umm, hello, you're not in private space like a gallery, the wall you painted on isn't YOUR wall. The splasher splashed paint on many "old" and timeless graffitti spots. So who's right? The graffitti guys? The splasher? IMO, both of them are wrong since there shouldn't have been graffitti there in the first place.

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roachboy

walls are public spaces in the same way as the visual field invaded by advertising is. there's a version of this same problem with radio in the idea (now more or less purely an idea) that the airwaves are public. anyway, there's a great short film you might (or might not) enjoy:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0303289/

i think there's something different going on with detournement than not wanting the adverts to be present--detournement is a political action that is explicit, public and ephemeral. removing them is replacing one overall aesthetic regime with another: either way, it is a decision made by authorities, where detournement is a creative (or destructive) political act made in (sometimes) an artistic manner. i like that--small gestures of defiance that are translated into a considered gesture in a public space.

like i said, i think this action is most powerful in the doing.


another way of looking at this is to wonder who decided that art has to be confined to galleries and at what point the decision (was there one?) taken that art=commodity?
why does that even make sense?

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Cynthetiq

thanks....
here's an exceprt, i'm looking for the whole movie now
The Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal



I think the question isn't who decided that art, it's who decided WHAT art, since there are many cities with art in public spaces. The people who are defacing are more or less upset that they didn't get to use the space themeselves in some manner, or don't approve of the use of the space.

tonight I stumbled upon absolutemachines.com, a sponsored intelligent machine. while skogafoss was bored, i was fascinated by the whole thing, you can play with it via the internet. absolute rented space in some building here in LES and they weren't asking or touting people to come in. We looked inside the window wondered why balls were bouncing.

http://www.absolut.com/absolutmachines

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.