“I got fired by my boss, Pepsi!
I nailed Jesus to the cross, Pepsi!”
Those were lyrics to the 1997 song The Greatest Taste Around by Negativland. Some of you might be asking “But isn’t culture jamming just doing some graffiti to billboards?” The answer to that would be no. Culture jamming was actually coined in 1984 by the band Negativland. It was on their debut album, Gen Con 84, on the second track in which they introduce the term in itself. However, Culture jamming has it’s roots dug in further in radio jamming and pirate broadcasters. Pirates would send out their own signal, which would be whatever music they wanted to play or whatever message they wanted to convey at the time and was made available without the use of a large corporate broadcaster. Of course, with the evolution beyond the radio, comes the evolution of jamming and the mediums in which it uses. Culture jamming is usually about hindering, blocking, or, altering the current signals being put through by the medium. An even greater example of how culture jamming has evolved comes from the fact that culture jamming is now everywhere thanks to the Internet. Culture jamming puts forward the idea of subverting cultural entities associated with brands. It’s often an anti-consumerist statement or a negative representation of the media for how we perceive a corporation or the products associated with that corporation.
But how did Negativland and other culture jammers actually get their message across? Culture jamming can work on five different levels. Subvertising, Media Hoaxing, Billboard Liberation, Shop Dropping, and Hacktivism
SUBVERTISING
The first of these levels would be subvertising This includes taking well-known memetics in culture and subverting or altering the discourse to create a new message. According to AdBusters, a Canadian magazine and a proponent of counter-culture and subvertising, “A well produced ‘subvert’ mimics the look and feel of the targeted ad, promoting the classic ‘double-take’ as viewers suddenly realize they have been duped. Subverts create cognitive dissonance. It cuts through the hype and glitz of our mediated reality and, momentarily, reveals a deeper truth within.” You can see from the lyrics of negativland’s The Greatest Taste Around That they create this cognitive dissonance with having negative images associated with the brand Pepsi. In the actual song, negativland makes use of audio clips from various Pepsi commercials to help achieve this. Another culture jammer that most people are aware of would be the graffiti artist known as Banksy. In 2010, Banksy directed a film entitled Exit Though the Gift Shop. One scene in the film shows Banksy visiting the US theme park, Disneyland. Due to the lack of reporting in the media, Banksy decided that the most visited theme park in America should have their own diorama of Guantanamo Bay next to one of the rides. The film shows Banksy getting a doll, dressing it like the Guantanamo Bay victim, and placing it next to one of the rides for the whole world to see.
MEDIA HOAXING
Media Hoaxing is another great form of Culture jamming as it blends the gullibility of a consumer or a mass audience as well as the technology that is provided by mass media. The intent is usually to create or fabricate a story with the message or idea on how the media is actually run. Great examples of this include the PR stunt that HUNGRYBEAST pulled in their pilot episode back in 2009; the work of the Yes Men: Jacques Servin and Igor Vamos, who create fake products and fake apologies from irresponsible companies; and finally the highly controversial and well known work of The Chasers. Above is an example of media hoaxing where the creator has altered an image of a Fox News broadcast and replaced the words used to sued the media against itself. The alteration does to the media what the media intended to do to others.
BILLBOARD LIBERATION
Billboard liberation actually began far before the time of culture jamming by the Billboard Liberation Front (BLF) founded in San Fransisco 1977. Billboard liberation alters the look of a billboard with a new message painted in the same style as the original advert. This turns strategic corporate elements back on themselves. In Australia, Buga-up was their version of the BLF which was actually incredibly helpful in removing smoking adverts in Australia throughout the eighties and nineties. It initially started in Sydney before moving state to state and bringing along the public opinion with the culture jammer. Above is an example of billboard liberation. The artist, though they did not actually alter a billboard, used the billboards humour against itself. The billboard originally stated please do not eat the burger. This was originally suppose to have a sense of humour to it where the image of the burger was suppose to be so delectable that one would not be able to resist the billboard itself. The artist has altered this to, again, use the techniques of the advert against itself.
SHOP DROPPING
Shop Dropping is incredibly cool as the average consumer can drop their own products on the shelves of store to create a cognitive dissonance with the average shopper looking for something new or interesting. Since it’s been coined in 2004 by Ryan Watkin-Hughes, shop dropping has been widely popular with art groups as they create a new place to display art to different and unassuming audiences. One of the most infamous examples of this came in 2006 when muscician Danger Mouse and artist Banksy Shop dropped a different version of Paris Hilton’s debut album. Their version contained altered images of Paris Hilton as well as a different CD that contained different tracks. The image above, though crude, shows the artists views on biology and various sciences. The thing about culture jamming is that, like any art form, is subject to interpretation. For instance, the above example may represent the views of the artist on biology and science, however, it may also represent the views of the artist on people who have a disdain for the sciences as evident by the crude nature of the alteration.
