putting the j in jjosh

Yesterday morning I was suddenly hit with the memory that I once wanted to do a doc (or series?) on culture jamming, the artform that has the artist using the culture as the medium for their art. It’s generally making some kind of comment on mass culture, often to do with consumerism, occasionally with art itself. Probably the best-known example (unless "Andre the Giant has a Posse OBEY" counts) is Banksy, whose stencil graffiti is mega-famous now, but I always liked his museum insertions better. Pictured above is a classic that he snuck into the British Museum in 2005; my favorite bit of the story is the fact that the British Museum:

"praised the way his rock was hung and the style of the sign, which was ‘very similar’ to their own design."

He’s also hit New York museums…

What else could count as culture jamming? Well, I think Improv Everywhere would definitely fit in, and I’d love to do a segment on The Amazing Hypnotist, though I guess these days they’re more well-known for the annual No-Pants Subway Ride or the Grand Central Station Freeze or Best Gig Ever, which showed up on the premiere of the tv version of This American Life.

I think Santarchy would fit in as well — without a culture for hundreds of Santas to play against, there wouldn’t be a Santarchy.

There must be more — if I could come up with a strong set of them, it could maybe make an entertaining, Erroll Morris-ish doc a la "Fast, Cheap and Out of Control". Plus it would have the overarching culture jamming theme over it.

So that popped back into my head yesterday — I think because I’m geeked to do more filming after The Snow of Truth — and then today I get this great link to a blog that someone has started within the comments section of a post on Gawker, which is itself a blog. Let me repeat that. Someone has started a blog in the comments section of another blog. Awesome. Does this count as culture jamming?