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Culture jamming is the act of transforming
mass media to produce commentary about itself, using the original medium's communication method. It is a form of public activism which is generally in opposition to commercialism, and the vectors of corporate image. The aim of culture jamming is to create a contrast between corporate or mass media images and the realities or perceived negative side of the corporation or media. This is done symbolically, with the "detournement" of pop iconography.
Culture jamming is based on the idea that
advertising is little more than
propaganda for established interests, and that there is a lack of an available means for alternative expression in industrialized nations. Proponents see culture jamming as a resistance movement to the hegemony of
popular culture, based on the ideas of "
guerrilla communication".
Culture jamming's intent differs from that of artistic appropriation (which is done for art's sake) and vandalism (where destruction or defacement is the primary goal), although its results are not always so easily distinguishable.
Origins
Coined by the sound collage band Negativland on its release
JamCon '84, the phrase "culture jamming" comes from the idea of
radio jamming: that public frequencies can be pirated and subverted for independent communication, or to disrupt dominant frequencies.
Culture jamming has roots in the Germany concept of
Spaßguerilla and in the Situationist International (SI) of the 1960s. The SI first compared its own activities to
radio jamming in 1968, when it proposed the use of
guerrilla communication within mass media to sow confusion within the dominant culture.
It is also thought that the phrase might, in part, come from the
1967 episode of
The Prisoner, "It's Your Funeral", which featured subversives calling themselves 'Jammers', who were attempting to disrupt the Orwellian dystopia in which the series takes place.
The Canadian magazine Adbusters began to promote culture jamming in 1989. American author and cultural critic
Mark Dery further popularized the term with his 1993 monograph
Culture Jamming: Hacking, Slashing and Sniping in the Empire of Signs.
Examples of culture jamming
Techniques of culture jamming include adbusting,
performance art,
graffiti, billboard alteration, flash mobs and hacktivism (such as cybersquatting and Google bombing).
- "Media Burn," a spectacle staged in 1975 by the performance art collective Ant Farm (group).
- BUGAUP, an Australian group founded in 1979 and most active in the 1980s, which creatively defaced advertising billboards, especially those featuring cigarette and alcohol advertising. The group's acronym which stands for Billboard-Utilising Graffitists Against Unhealthy Promotions, is also a pun -- to "bugger up" is an Australian slang term meaning "to spoil/ruin"
- Naomi Klein's No Logo highlights the work of Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada , of Artfux and the Cicada Corps of Artists. An excerpt is in Brandweek magazine.
- The Bubble Project, a street art movement which involves placing empty "speech bubbles" on posters and advertisements.
- The Church of the SubGenius, a satirical religion.
- Gorillaz' "Gorillaz#Reject False Icons" movement, encouraging the placement of stickers on pictures of "False Icons" like Ashlee Simpson and Usher. Supporters also use graffiti to spread the word.
- Billboard (advertising) modifications, done in the style of the original billboard, by groups (e.g., the Billboard Liberation Front) or individuals.
- Modifying slogans to create political statements. For example "Just do it... or else!" was used as a modified slogan to comment on Nike, Inc.'s sweat shop practices.
- Google bombing, a widespread effort to purposely influence the automated association of specific keywords with results produced by internet search engines, especially Google.
- The Who's 1967 album The Who Sell Out, featuring satirical faux commercials on the cover and between the tracks.
- The band Negativland's Dispepsi album, in which recordings related in some way to soft drinks are used to comment (in a negative way) on the beverage industry and its marketing practices.
- The Church of Satan's ad featuring founder Anton Szandor LaVey holding a snake in the style of Apple Computer's "Think Different" campaign.
- The 1994 Watch the K-Foundation Burn a Million Quid of £1,000,000 in cash by the K Foundation.
- Sousveillance, the recording or monitoring of authority figures.
- Whirl-Mart is an event that seeks to mimic and mock what they perceive as the absurdity of the shopping process, often by organising a crowd to walk around a Wal-Mart in an apparent daze for several hours, buying nothing.
- The defacement of stolen (and then returned) library books by Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell, for which they were imprisoned for six months in 1962. Written about in detail in John Lahr's "Prick Up Your Ears."
as street art
- André the Giant Has a Posse, a street art campaign.
- Kerry Against Bush a spoof political pressure group, based in Kerry Ireland who urged voters to vote against GW Bush in the 2004 election. Their logo was a jam of a kerrygold butter logo. The website is archived here
- Nike-Jam by 01.org
- Stickering stop signs to create messages (e.g., "Stop War," "Stop Eating Animals," etc.).
- Operation Mindfuck- Outlined as various projects for Discordianism to carry out which involve either defacement or sending absurd letters to people who have political power. Most notably Project Eagle which involves putting up fliers that read "Burn the polls, ye sons of freedom" on or around election day and Project Graffito (and Project Bumpersticker) which involve giving particularly Erisian slogans, such as "Your Local Police Are Armed and Dangerous", widespread distribution.
Culture jamming organizations or people
See also
References
- Tietchen, T. “Language out of Language: Excavating the Roots of Culture Jamming and Postmodern Activism from William S. Burroughs' Nova Trilogy.” Discourse: Berkeley Journal for Theoretical Studies in Media and Culture. 23, Part 3 (2001): 107-130.
- Klein, Naomi (2000). No Logo. London: Flamingo.
- Lasn, Kalle (1999) Culture Jam. New York: Eagle Brook.
- Kyoto Journal: Culture Jammer's Guide to Enlightenment.
Culture jamming is the act of transforming mass media to produce commentary about itself, using the original medium's communication method. It is a form of public activism which is generally in opposition to commercialism, and the vectors of corporate image. The aim of culture jamming is to create a contrast between corporate or mass media images and the realities or perceived negative side of the corporation or media. This is done symbolically, with the "
detournement" of pop iconography.
Culture jamming is based on the idea that
advertising is little more than propaganda for established interests, and that there is a lack of an available means for alternative expression in industrialized nations. Proponents see culture jamming as a
resistance movement to the hegemony of popular culture, based on the ideas of "guerrilla communication".
Culture jamming's intent differs from that of artistic appropriation (which is done for art's sake) and vandalism (where destruction or defacement is the primary goal), although its results are not always so easily distinguishable.
Origins
Coined by the
sound collage band
Negativland on its release
JamCon '84, the phrase "culture jamming" comes from the idea of radio jamming: that public frequencies can be pirated and subverted for independent communication, or to disrupt dominant frequencies.
Culture jamming has roots in the Germany concept of
Spaßguerilla and in the
Situationist International (SI) of the 1960s. The SI first compared its own activities to
radio jamming in
1968, when it proposed the use of
guerrilla communication within
mass media to sow confusion within the dominant culture.
It is also thought that the phrase might, in part, come from the
1967 episode of
The Prisoner, "It's Your Funeral", which featured subversives calling themselves 'Jammers', who were attempting to disrupt the Orwellian
dystopia in which the series takes place.
The Canadian magazine
Adbusters began to promote culture jamming in 1989. American author and cultural critic Mark Dery further popularized the term with his 1993 monograph
Culture Jamming: Hacking, Slashing and Sniping in the Empire of Signs.
Examples of culture jamming
Techniques of culture jamming include adbusting, performance art, graffiti, billboard alteration,
flash mobs and hacktivism (such as
cybersquatting and Google bombing).
- "Media Burn," a spectacle staged in 1975 by the performance art collective Ant Farm (group).
- BUGAUP, an Australian group founded in 1979 and most active in the 1980s, which creatively defaced advertising billboards, especially those featuring cigarette and alcohol advertising. The group's acronym which stands for Billboard-Utilising Graffitists Against Unhealthy Promotions, is also a pun -- to "bugger up" is an Australian slang term meaning "to spoil/ruin"
- Naomi Klein's No Logo highlights the work of Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada , of Artfux and the Cicada Corps of Artists. An excerpt is in Brandweek magazine.
- The Bubble Project, a street art movement which involves placing empty "speech bubbles" on posters and advertisements.
- The Church of the SubGenius, a satirical religion.
- Gorillaz' "Gorillaz#Reject False Icons" movement, encouraging the placement of stickers on pictures of "False Icons" like Ashlee Simpson and Usher. Supporters also use graffiti to spread the word.
- Billboard (advertising) modifications, done in the style of the original billboard, by groups (e.g., the Billboard Liberation Front) or individuals.
- Modifying slogans to create political statements. For example "Just do it... or else!" was used as a modified slogan to comment on Nike, Inc.'s sweat shop practices.
- Google bombing, a widespread effort to purposely influence the automated association of specific keywords with results produced by internet search engines, especially Google.
- The Who's 1967 album The Who Sell Out, featuring satirical faux commercials on the cover and between the tracks.
- The band Negativland's Dispepsi album, in which recordings related in some way to soft drinks are used to comment (in a negative way) on the beverage industry and its marketing practices.
- The Church of Satan's ad featuring founder Anton Szandor LaVey holding a snake in the style of Apple Computer's "Think Different" campaign.
- The 1994 Watch the K-Foundation Burn a Million Quid of £1,000,000 in cash by the K Foundation.
- Sousveillance, the recording or monitoring of authority figures.
- Whirl-Mart is an event that seeks to mimic and mock what they perceive as the absurdity of the shopping process, often by organising a crowd to walk around a Wal-Mart in an apparent daze for several hours, buying nothing.
- The defacement of stolen (and then returned) library books by Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell, for which they were imprisoned for six months in 1962. Written about in detail in John Lahr's "Prick Up Your Ears."
as street art
- André the Giant Has a Posse, a street art campaign.
- Kerry Against Bush a spoof political pressure group, based in Kerry Ireland who urged voters to vote against GW Bush in the 2004 election. Their logo was a jam of a kerrygold butter logo. The website is archived here
- Nike-Jam by 01.org
- Stickering stop signs to create messages (e.g., "Stop War," "Stop Eating Animals," etc.).
- Operation Mindfuck- Outlined as various projects for Discordianism to carry out which involve either defacement or sending absurd letters to people who have political power. Most notably Project Eagle which involves putting up fliers that read "Burn the polls, ye sons of freedom" on or around election day and Project Graffito (and Project Bumpersticker) which involve giving particularly Erisian slogans, such as "Your Local Police Are Armed and Dangerous", widespread distribution.
Culture jamming organizations or people
See also
References
- Tietchen, T. “Language out of Language: Excavating the Roots of Culture Jamming and Postmodern Activism from William S. Burroughs' Nova Trilogy.” Discourse: Berkeley Journal for Theoretical Studies in Media and Culture. 23, Part 3 (2001): 107-130.
- Klein, Naomi (2000). No Logo. London: Flamingo.
- Lasn, Kalle (1999) Culture Jam. New York: Eagle Brook.
- Kyoto Journal: Culture Jammer's Guide to Enlightenment.
Culture Jamming - Media Hoaxing - Kommunikationsguerilla - Adbusting
Overview of subversive affirmation, media hoaxing, and adbusting, with links to influential participants. [English/German]
Medienaktionismus Culture Jamming Interview
Teaser der Dokumentation 'Culture Jamming' ... contains samples of the video "Nikeground - Rethinking Space" of Institute For New Culture Technologies
Culture jamming - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A precise definition of culture jamming is elusive. It has been called a resistance movement to cultural hegemony, whereas some say the defining theme of culture jamming is an ...
Culture jamming (I) | Books | guardian.co.uk
Part two: The Manchurian consumer: are you authentic? Part three: Posthuman: life in cyberspace Part four: The new activism (fire in the belly)
ABRUPT
Apocalyptic Optimism for the End of History abrupt at abrupt dot org. CULTURE JAMMING
CULTURE JAMMING
For 10 years, Abrupt has been culture-jamming with manifestos, ad parodies, and radical pamphleteering.
Wooster Collective: Culture Jamming Archives
woo·ster (noun) A street in the Soho section of New York City. col·lec·tive (noun) Of, relating to, characteristic of, or made by a number of people acting as a group: a ...
Adbusters Culture Jammers Headquarters
Activist's magazine focusing on media, advertising, corporate crime, and many other subjects.
Shovelware
Culture Jamming: Hacking, Slashing and Sniping in the Empire of Signs "Culture jamming," a term I have popularized by articles in The New York Times and Adbusters, might best be ...
culture jamming / subvertising | Earth First! Action Reports
Direct action - no leaders - confront, stop & reverse the destruction of the earth
