"Culture Jamming": C/D

I say DUD. Why should I listen to a reworking of a song/several songs when the artist in question is using them to point out how vapid and crap he thinks the song/s is/are?

Oops, that link for the ECC website is screwed up. It should be this instead.

Mark S should be winging his way over here any time now. ;-)

Culture jamming as term and phenomenon -- something I wish I could speak more readily about. The Negativland list, which Brian M. runs and which I've been on since the start, is in many ways unofficial headquarters of this particular approach (ECC himself has been on the list before, perhaps still is? sometimes I lose track).

Not necessarily revolutionary...but still neat. If there's a poor division to be made, it would be that with the PE/Alpert mix ECC found something that worked as a perfect joke for the preexisting Negativland/Plunderphonics fan base but which became a raison d'etre for modern bootlegging -- namely, because it was catchy and pop in and of itself.

Is this going to be another one of those threads where people talk about how all politics are too complex for anybody to actually take a position? And where artists courageous enough to publicly state how things seem to them get called "naive" for not just say "oh well the world's complex and all this rot probably can't be helped"? I bet so. Screw that. Culture jamming is responsible for a lot of really ace design work, and isn't (preemptive counterstrike here) just preaching to the converted: slogans/symbols win hearts and minds faster than anything. Except maybe declamatory ranting ;)

"slogans/symbols win hearts and minds faster than anything" - but there's nothing easier to subvert than a subversion; consider Pepsi's response to Negativland. Culture jamming's good for a few laughs but at most it fosters cynicism, instead of prompting action or thought.

Politics are *not* too complex for anybody to take a defensible opinion. Is that the standard sentiment around here? What a pathetic cop-out.

I do think there is a valid point about being politically didactic in a creative work - it can be awfully boring and off-putting. There's a fine line between good, clever, agit-prop and self-righteous grandstanding and it often isn't pretty. But it seems to me you should ask yourself whether a piece is engaging and provocative first and then analyze its politics second. If you put politics ahead of being creatively challenging, I think you run into a lot of problems... That being said, I think the ECC's record is pretty funny, and the whole "culture-jamming" underground I very much approve of. There's gotta be *someone* out there kicking against the pricks, laying bare the roots of social programming, etc. And if they can do it in a clever and interesting way, that's quite an achievement. It makes people think and challenge assumptions - what's wrong with that?

--Politics are *not* too complex for anybody to take a defensible opinion. Is that the standard sentiment around here? What a pathetic cop-out. I do think there is a valid point about being politically didactic in a creative work - it can be awfully boring and off-putting. There's a fine line between good, clever, agit-prop and self- righteous grandstanding and it often isn't pretty. But it seems to me you should ask yourself whether a piece is engaging and provocative first and then analyze its politics second. If you put politics ahead of being creatively challenging, I think you run into a lot of problems... That being said, I think the ECC's record is pretty funny, and the whole "culture-jamming" underground I very much approve of. There's gotta be *someone* out there kicking against the pricks, laying bare the roots of social programming, etc. And if they can do it in a clever and interesting way, that's quite an achievement. It makes people think and challenge assumptions - what's wrong with that?--

I have nothing to add to this but "totally."

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Personally I think it depends on the target. The whole "Deconstructing Beck" CD, f'rinstance- a bunch of artists who adhere to the whole "copyright infringement is your best entertainment value" ethos going up in arms over a "corporate" artist such as Beck getting Geffen money to clear samples and, as a result, putting out a CD filled with chopped-up Beck songs as some sort of political statement- seems sort of condescending. "We are REAL artists and we are above these derivative corporate puppets who are tools of the big-money record label system" and all that assorted arglebargle that worries more about how rich a musician is over what sort of music they make. The end product itself is usually pretty interesting, but the impetus- "anything even remotely corporate is BRAINWASHING you!"- seems too problematical to me.

On the other hand, if it's just tinkering around with the conventions of music and finding interesting or unusual connections between songs or other pop culture landmarks, and the intention is more collage-art- stuff instead of true-artist-ier-than-thou nose-thumbing, it's fine by me. (John Oswald's "BTLS" is exhibit A, pointing out the interesting connection between the first note of "A Hard Day's Night" and the last note of "A Day In the Life".)

haha negativland

culture jamming is lame for the same reason that ads can't damage strong songs

therefore culture jamming in the short run=classic

Mark, it's pretty clear you're a lit theory person: what, in De Man's phrase, accounts for your resistance to a held position? Every time a topic is raised that involves an artist stating a belief (other than the belief which the making of art implicitly states i.e. that there is inherent value in the making of art) you swing in to opine that it couldn't possibly matter. Sez me: it must matter to you, ? Continentally yours, sur-texte, c'est moi -

The fact that the culture machine makes perfectly good source material for agitprop does not have to imply that everything corporate is bad. That's like saying Andy Warhol had it in for Marilyn Monroe. Anyway, everything corporate IS not to be trusted, and the media simply isn't competent enough to carry out an agenda for destruction; it just sucks. Between The New York Times and a Negativland album, I'm not sure what I'd choose, but Puff Daddy making millions off of Berry Gordy and spending it on champagne for his friends is all the way classic.

Pls. insert "n'est-pas" in italics right after "...to you." Merci.

it WAS classic in the short run john = viz i larfed a bit at culturcide lo these many million years ago, then i stopped when i realised their record was actually pretty lame, when played like the third or fourth time. the site nate linked to is pathetic, "oh bootlegs have validated us we are pioneers!!" Culture jamming is lame because it argues that something is weak and useless while pimping off its condensed locked-in power.

i'm not a lit crit person: yeah i've read de man/derrida etc, but i write and think about music and records mostly => i'm not hostile to stated intention, i just think it's quite a good idea — you know, in terms of politics and scary complex stuff like that — to assume that not all stated intentions are achieved (though sometimes other much more interesting things happen) and that not all stated intentions are intended. The artist goes prospecting for phosphorus he can toss into the bucket of water that is the audience: if he seeks and tosses correctly, fireworks, but sometimes the phosphorus ends up under the fridge where he can't get it, and sometimes it lands in the bucket but it was just some old gum he found under the seat in front on the bus.

viz: why they are making MUSIC? Poss ans = because it is easier to make lame music and not get called on it when you repeat yourself a bazillion times than (for example) write lame articles or make lame artwork (on-cue proof: John Oswald's artwork and videowork IS lamer than his music, hard though that is to imagine)

None of these people are stating a political position more coherent than: "I am cleverer than a Michael Jackson fan; buy my record and you are cleverer too." Peter Shapiro asked Oswald about copyright in that Wire piece: Oswald said he didn't really know much about it or have anything to say about it.

"It makes people think and challenge assumptions" => This is exactly what it DOESN'T do. This is why it isn't political, though yes, it sure likes to pretend it is.

(Think I'll keep Gilles-John for future posts, I like its willful stoopidity.) Mark: ye said: Culture jamming is lame because it argues that something is weak and useless while pimping off its condensed locked-in power.This is a narrow view of it, I think. Is satire weak because it couldn't exist without its target? Read Swift and see if you think so (not implying that you haven't read Swift, just lurching rhetorical there). Culture jamming is essentially satire with newer media as the raw materials, and a lot of it (I think more of Adbusters than ECC, though I do like ECC OK) is quite good qua art. But to out myself utterly I should say that whenever I hear it said that this or that thing is "complex," what I hear is "Your attack cannot be valid as it has not sniffed out every possible aspect of the situation," which I think is a cop out. I understand that you are not in fact saying this, but are politics really so complex that art must not address them unless the artist in question has closely considered every possible standpoint from every possible angle and has an M.A. in political ideology besides? Aristophanes didn't think so, and he wrote excellent songs.

Instead of C/D, S&D- Search: Old anti smoking ads from Adbusters, specifically the marbolo man grave/phalic horse ad.
destroy: um most of the rest including the grateful dead atmosphere protests have now days.

"are politics really so complex that art must not address them unless the artist in question has closely considered every possible standpoint from every possible angle and has an M.A. in political ideology besides": No. Where did *I* claim this? This is what its fans always seem to be saying, that Culture Jamming is politically alert. It's not: it never gets beyond the very first step. Oswald agreed to give an interview with The Wire = he acquiesces in the routine music-biz device for touting intention-as-art; faced with it, he delivers absolutely no "culture-jamming" whatever, simply allows himself to be promoted as the Brilliantly Subversive Artist for a (smug) niche market. He is not smarter than the industry he mocks.

I like the idea of defacing posters => it's often pretty funny; it respects the (powerful) aesthetics of the form and uses it againt the stupidity of the particular content. I like bootlegs: they DO rewire the way we hear music. They are not presenting what they do as a radical assault as the system. It isn't. Boots at the top of the charts = the system is quite happy with this new twist thank you. Negativland not at the top of the charts = Negativland were really never very good at collage, and had absolutely no ear for music of any kind. Blimey if I think that I must have been "socially programmed".

Isn't Culture Jamming just a one-punchline joke used by a load of guilt-ridden middle-class surfers and skaters who like to think of themselves as alternative and dangerous and socially / politically / culturally pariah'd (is that a word? it is now) by big business and multi-nationalism?

I know people who went to the May day riots to demonstrate who haven't a clue when it comes to actual political realities, they just see an opportunity to join in with something cool and alternative and a little bit dangerous. Faced with issues and events that aren't so trendy (the BNP in recent local elections, race riots last summer, etcetera) and anti-capitalist they tend to go glassy-eyed.

Whether Culture Jamming manifests itself as adbusting or bootlegging, it's not the politcal danger or edge that makes it interesting, it's the fact that initially it's quite funny. Basically it's just another form of entertainment, and as soon as EMI or whoeever releases a double album "Best Culture Jamming Bootlegs In The World Ever Volume 1" then it'll have been sublimated and interpolated into the 'evil capitalist' system in just the same way as every other counter-culture movement from punks to new age travellers (have you been in Top Shop lately? it's full of pikey clothes).

But then again I come from a sleepy coastal Devon town, and most of the people around me who are interested in this kind of thing actually are middle-class surfer kids. Anyone who could be described as working class is too busy earning a crust to be interested in vaguelly alternative politics and music.

As an aside, didn't Courtney Love say something in an interview a couple of years ago about the detrimental effects of alternative culture's massive opposition to success and achievement? It strikes me as being part of the same thing, part of this ideology of alternativity, not 'selling out', etcetera etcetera, which is the basis of the twisted and unwritten moral structure that saw Kurt Cobain put a bullet through his skull.

mark s (kind of) agrees with nick s shockah!!

Really? I must be slipping...

I really despise the anti-globalisation movement despite supporting it to a point. It's a great struggle within me which I must conquer one day.

As an aside, didn't Courtney Love say something in an interview a couple of years ago about the detrimental effects of alternative culture's massive opposition to success and achievement? Well, I'm sure she did -- and didn't GW Bush say something about the vote counts in Florida being on the up-and-up? "Success" and "achievement" in the terms Love means are understood strictly in monetary terms, which'd make Shania Twain the new Beethoven. Doesn't the opposition to anti-corporatism itself smack of the very knee-jerking of which it accuses its target: reducing its complaints to empty gestures, itself offering no remedies? I'm sort of with Ronan, though I don't despise the anti-corporate movement itself -- I just get bored hanging around loads of guys with tats and bolts through their septa.

In any case, to equate an honest & honestly gotten mistrust of large corporations with Cobain's death is disingenuous. His label's eagerness to exploit his bipolar disorder for all the press it was worth bears more guilt than the disorganized ideas to which he refers in his parting note. Or are we saying that if only everybody would stop whining so much and learn to love Sony, K.C. would be with us today? If so that smacks of the very naivete of which anti-globalists are often accused.

He is not smarter than the industry he mocks. And therefore his work is hypocritical, I take it? Stuff and nonsense. What you seem to be saying here is that one must equate oneself at all times with the content of one's work, or the work is somehow cheapened. This is the old authorial intention trick, which is as invalid with political writing as it is in all other occurrances. I had a great example of how authorial intention can't work but unfortunately it involved a songwriter of whose success I am actively envious so I had to delete it.

instead of reaching once again for the lamest possible version of what CL might be saying, to defeat once again w. a jolly one-liner, why not actually construct a STRONG and INTERESTING version of what she might be saying, and argue with that? (for example: resist the temptation to sneer — yet again — at courtney-the-corporate-whore, and look past what you consider HER idea of success and achievement; what d'you think Kurt's might have been? what's negativland's? what's YOURS?)

(ditto of course with what WE might be saying... stop putting stupid words in my mouth, john, it's boring and it makes me do the same back at you)

courtney in hollywood = actual real culture jamming

EFFECT is what i am talking about, not intention: i don't know why ppl have such difficulty with this idea

courtney in hollywood = actual real culture jamming

How, though? I mean, it's not like she's been some sort of smash success, more a vaguely interesting character actor in a couple of films. Whence the jam?

I just get annoyed by the assumption that if the AG movement's message was known by everyone, they'd all agree.

Perhaps I'm being unfair in suggesting that this is the case but all this "inform inform" rhetoric strikes me as kind of arrogant. It suggests people who aren't part of the movement are ignorant. Also it's got exactly the kind of fundamentalist feel to it as the same religions so many of the protestors criticise.

I guess that's just a bloody technicality but it's the technicalities that make me irritated.

So anti-coporatism is knee-jerking and reactionary, anti-anti- corporatism is also knee-jerking and reactionary... Does that mean that only corporatism is pure and true and unsullied?

Just because Courtney Love is Courney Love does not mean that she can't make a salient and insightful point, however badly worded or bile-fuelled it's presentation may be. Kurt's bi-polar disorder, as you put it, may have been why he put a bullet through his skull, but the 'slacker code' ("no surrender to the IRS by being successful", "one must wear filthy plaid at all times", "one cannot 'art' if one has not suffered", "a healthy and commited drug porblem is far cooler than a healthy and commited emotional relationship" etcetera etcetera) and the guilt it causes in those who break it intentionally or accidentally must have been a contributary factor.

Kurt Cobain was not Kevin Shields or Can or Miles Davis or Aphex Twin or (insert experimental artist of choice), he was not an experimentor or innovator or radical genius. He WAS a damn good writer of loud and catchy pop songs that people like to sing along to / jump up and down to / empathise with. He had an ear for writing pop songs which appealed to a mass audience, and the 'slacker code' is diametrically opposed to this kind of success because it is seen as selling out your talent. Cobain didn't sell out his talent, because his talent was innately populist anyway.

There are young teenagers wondering around your home town today wearing big black jeans and Nirvana hoodies who were 5 or 6 when Cobain died, and yet he is an icon for them, and they are absorbing slowly and surely the tribalistic ethos of culture jamming and slackerism. Whether these kids already suffer from severe mental illness or not, having them grow up in a sub-culture that discourages success (and not just commercial but also academic, social, sporting, etcetera) and adhere to a set of unwritten and vague set of values and morals isn't exactly going to help them make their way in the world. I grew up with people who aspire to and live out this lifestyle and I'm still friends with lots of them but their opinions are generally very one-sided and narrow and they do not care about politics or social welfare. They would rather smash a McDonalds window then raise money for a childrens charity or buy The Big Issue. My mate Ben has a t-shirt with a spoof Sony logo that says 'Praysatan' - someone comments on it ad he can't offer a discouirse about what it says about Sony, he isn't aware of the many organisations under the Sony-name umbrella that make tanks or whatever, but he can roll a damn fine looking spliff and complete Zelda IX or Metal Gear Solid 2 or whatever and he has got lots of underground punk records. I also know of a guy who lives in a shack in a wood near Cardiff, who has opted out of corporate society almost completely, and who can spout all the counter-culture rhetoric you could ever wish to hear, which is fucking fantastic and inspirational to see someone actually living out their morals. Till you ask him about his dad and he admits his dad is a partner in a law firm and gives him a grand a month allowance. He doesn't live by working the land, he lives by having no fixed address to be sent tax bills to and going down to Safeway twice a week.

I'm not knee-jerking and I'm not preaching, I'm wearing Nike shorts and trainers and I own far more shiny silver Sony goods than is strictly necessary. I just recognise my own hypocrisy at being mildly offended by the idea of sweat shops and rampant capitalism and yet still wearing and enjoying the spoils of this lifestyle. There isn't really an option, and encouraging people to be guilty because of the society they live in doesn't do any good. Encouraging them to be thoughtful and generous might do, but that's just not cool enough.

Does that make any sense? Am I still on-topic?

who she's been + what she's done + who she's done + what she's sung + what she plays in the movies in question + HOW she plays in the movies in question = not business as usual

And another thing, back in 1997 I wans't old enough to vote by 2 weeks, and was trying to encourage my friends (including my aforementioned mate Ben) to vote Lib Dem rather than Labour, because in Teignbridge Labour have never stood a chance of ousting the Tories. Did my friends vote Lib Dem then? No, even though I'd sat them down and explained Lib Dem policies to them and they'd agreed with them, explained tactical voting, explained how much of a twat Patrick Nicholls is, etcetera etcetera. No, they'd voted Labour because Labour "are socialists and that's nearly communist and that's anti-capitalist." The mind boggles.

Mmm...I see what you're getting at, Mark, but right now she strikes me as someone simply -- choice of word intentional -- famous for being famous. How exactly does that make her different in the grand scheme of things right this second from Boy George, say, regardless of whatever happened in their respective pasts?

She's got worse make up than Boy George. And she doesn't write a column for the Daily Express.

Is Boy George writing for the Express REAL culture jamming?

haha i'll get back you on that nick!!

Imagine a world where only a select number of people in each city could read and write. This was actually a reality a short while back in history. Now almost everyone (who's not starving) reads and writes.

Imagine if, in the future, everybody is adept at jamming. What if culture jamming gets taught in school as just one way for citizens to protect themselves and civilization from greedy influences that can be damaging to the individual and collective human psyche (like powerhouse corporations and their commercial saturation of all our lives)? That is where jamming could really be affective, if it's given some mass appeal. I really would like to see a jammed counterpart for every TV commercial I see; that would be a funny world.

Steve The Piss is my new god

steve the piss : you might want to subscribe to mad magazine then.

are politics really so complex that art must not address them unless the artist in question has closely considered every possible standpoint from every possible angle and has an M.A. in political ideology besides?

Yes, politics are complex, but there is a consistent theme that underlies most of it- power corrupts, and acquisition of wealth is what drives EVERYTHING in one way or another. Everybody has a "special interest," and culture jammers have deconstructing, criticizing and commenting upon our manufactured roles as passive consumers as theirs (amongst others, such as The U.S. Copyright Law.... heh heh... which is definitely a thorny multi- faceted issue). Expecting them to be totally objective would be political correctness to the point of detriment. The politicians and corporations have already innundated us with their mission statemements, which too many of us simply accept...

Culture jamming's good for a few laughs but at most it fosters cynicism, instead of prompting action or thought.

The cynicism is already out there... how can it not be in today's completely @$#! state of the world? Rather than "foster" it (the gov. does well enough with that) I think it gives people a creative, multimedia way of looking at it. As for prompting action... check out http://www.rtmark.com/ As for prompting thought... http://www.negativland.com/intprop.html

Isn't Culture Jamming just a one-punchline joke used by a load of guilt-ridden middle-class surfers

To some, maybe, but not all.... besides, those "guilt-ridden middle- class surfers " are also the people who sit around and pick apart the punchline, as we are here.

"inform inform" rhetoric strikes me as kind of arrogant. It suggests people who aren't part of the movement are ignorant.

Good point, but a bit too blanketed. If you feel offended, then you're already hip to why C-Jammers are doing what they're doing. There are still too many sheep out there that do not, and may benefit ideolgically from the proliferation of this philosophy/art form. In an information age largely dominated by corporate media, is it not better to promote "inform inform" rather than "buy! buy!"

Or am I just being arrogant...?

Mark play fair: bearing out some possible consequences of what you say is not the same as putting words in your mouth. In re: Ms Love, I don't rate her singing/playing/songwriting OR acting so we're beginning from different points I think. I think her "detrimental effects of opposition to success" is a sandbag against what she is: somebody who'd do anything for a coupla bucks, and who's bright enough to construct elaborate rationalizations for whatever that something is. What about the detrimental effects of embracing dominant paradigms? The risks seem greater and harder to undo. Do plenty of culture-jamming-sympathetic types (like me) embrace sometimes unexamined paradigms which are dominant within our own narrow frame of reference? Of course. That's what discussions like these are for. Courtney's idea of success seems to be "remaining in the public eye." I think K.C. was still working his out and ran into despair, concluding that all success is false or empty (and I assert again that valid questions about the nature of material success [wealth, fame] aren't to blame for his death). For me success is getting an idea across coherently. I set my sights pretty low and am therefore completely tickled if I manage to express myself without my thoughts trailing off into less and less cohesive threads of less and less pertinent etc.

Sorry to chime in so late in the thread, but:

Yes. Try as I might to develop a STRONG/INTERESTING version of what CL might be saying about the detrimental effects of anti- success-think, I find it's impossible to divorce from HER definition of success and her caricature of those who don't buy into it. If you let "success" equal something BESIDES wealth and mass-media exposure, it simply doesn't hold up as an argument. There are ALL KINDS of people who don't want that out of life, not just the aforementioned trust-funded "SELLOUT!"-exclaiming "slacker code"- following hipsters whose peer-pressure (!!?) "partly contributed" to her husband's suicide. (I mean, really. What, was he 12 years old?)

The need to imagine that every dissenting voice must dribble forth from the mouth of a defeatist halfwit is pretty interesting (and judging from this thread and the ads/music one, also extremely popular). Quickly reveals its OWN handy defeatism, doesn't it? (see Nick's "There isn't really an option..." paragraph above)

As for culture jamming: maybe it does offer minor revelations to the uninitiated, but it ISN'T good satire because it's far less sophisticated than its targets at this point. Inept as an analogue to meaningful debate; toothless as provocation. Weren't Negativland the ones who randomly inserted some crap disc into a bunch of their own cd cases? Sticking it to the Man by ripping off fans you should be amazed to have in the first place. Wow. Dud

courtney in hollywood = actual real culture jamming... who she's been + what she's done + who she's done + what she's sung + what she plays in the movies in question + HOW she plays in the movies in question = not business as usual

I'm trying to find the hole in this, mark s ( it has to do with her NOT being the first loudmouth with a drug habit to be typecast as such) but I admit you've got me stumped. Of course her REAL real culture jamming is this unreleased Nirvana material court-case; stalling the release of a "significant" artifact = literally jamming culture.

I don't think anybody is claiming that culture jamming is somehow new and revolutionary. I do claim that it is a valid artform and capable of producting some change (at least in thinking)..

Here's the way I see it.. Artists have always taken their environment, taken things from it, and crafted it into their own particular perspective. In this media-saturated age, the media is obviously a huge part of our environment. People identify with newscasters and cartoon characters as much as any "real person".. Advertising smacks into your retnas just about wherever you point them. To take these bits and pieces of this environment, to manipulate them, and present them back to the world to show a perspective on it - seems like a totally reasonable thing for artists of any variety to be doing.

If the question is then can culture jamming change the world, I'd have to ask if any art can change the world?

> Weren't Negativland the ones who randomly inserted some crap disc > into a bunch of their own cd cases? Sticking it to the Man by > ripping off fans you should be amazed to have in the first place.

Now that was a honest mistake at the CD plant, not an attempt at culture jamming, and it's hardly fair to blame the band. If you want to critisize them, at least do it about something relevant.

I don't remotely think all dissent is defeatist — though i do think there's a specific absolutist version of the anti-ad position on the other thread which is implicitly based on a kind of aesthetic defeatism. I have no idea if this is what Courtney means by achievement, but if the kind of confidence and momentum a hit record entitles an artist to was denied KC, not exactly the High Prince of Self-Esteem in the first place, then this is a wrong-headed kink in his understanding of punk, derived from the self-stunting downer spirit that pervaded alt.rock in the late 80s, and one which pulled him down when it needn't have done. The Sex Pistols tried twice to sign to a major, and ended up on an indie that pretty much functioned as a junior major. They had seven top ten singles, three top ten LPs, one at #1 (UK). Even Public Image had two top ten singles (ditto). This doesn't make the records *better* (some of them were awful): but it's not a moral failure or a political disgrace either. It's an opportunity; a weapon; an energy. It can be used; it can get out of control; it can be thrown away.

If I wanted to make a cast-iron case for CL, it would have to go roughly this way: she has never at any stage in her career made the slightest attempt to airbrush the nasty ugly self-centred charge of her ambition, or sidestep the depiction of astounding contradictions. It's in her records; it's in her films; it's in the way she walks in the world. Malevolent energy. Good. She would have made a lousy screen Nancy, cuz she hadn't learnt to act yet (and Cox is a clueless director with actors): but to make up for it, she's the best real-life non-self-destructive Sid we're going to get.

I think the thing that ticks me off about culture jamming especially is that no one ever seems able to say anything particularly interesting about any of the work itself, SPECIFICALLY. Why this record by [xx] is great, where that one by [yy] is not so good. All the pro-comment is totally generic: IT IS ONE IN THE EYE FOR THE MAN!! (OK, this isn't totally fair either: Sean and Ned have said, on a thread i started about Negativland, Look, this record by [zz] is funny — but I can turn on TV and see funny and non-funny skits about Mass Pop stuff... I like funny things, but they're just SO NOT a war on Corporate Invasion of our Lives.

(ps i have used the word "lame" about 3745385 times on this thread, which = v.poor and you are allowed to bzzzzzt me out the game totally if i use it again)

"Nirvana sucked ass even if they did revolutionize the rock scene"

"As for prompting action... check out http://www.rtmark.com/ As for prompting thought... http://www.negativland.com/intprop.html" - Prompting further culture jamming hardly counts as prompting action or thought. As activisism culture jamming is ineffective and irrelevant (show me one piece of legislation), as art it is (all together now) lame.

Wow, a lot to talk about, yet you guys seem to be going in circles around the "truth". The whole fight against "Corporate influence" is no different than the fight against the "Governmental influence" or Religious influence" of the past and present.

Culture Jamming is an necessity of culture. Period.

Creating an upheaval of the set mores, values, and ideas placed upon the masses by a single voice. (multiplied a million times) Whether that voice be Sony or the Catholic Church or John Ashcroft.

Now, making money isn't bad. Capitalism isn't bad. Corporations aren't bad. My grandmother isn't a whore! They just tend to get out of control at times. That's why a backlash is necessary. (There's a reason satire has existed for centuries! Power upheaval.)

One of the reasons I choose to be anti-corporate is because of their connection with congress. It's bad enough that my vison is clogged with ads all day much less laws being made that force me to watch it. Or laws that give products more rights and power than the people who consume it.

The Slacker Movement says the same thing the Matrix says. (but in a different way) look outside the box. Society has constructed a HUGE game for you to play, but you don't have to play it. As a matter of fact, if enough of us stop playing the game, we can make up our own. (counter culture)

My parents did it, it was called the sixties. Unfortunately, it didn't exactly work out the way they imagined it would. The problem is that everyone has a voice and an ability to lead. (some choose to use it.) and we all play AGAINST each other. Create a subversive lifestyle to change the way things work, and the machine adopts your sub-culture and promotes it as their new campaign.

Now, to get abck to the point... How can a piece of art or music (if they are not the same) create an upheaval of power?

Easy. It influences.

I sure as hell would have been a pop radio listening, coke swilling, walmart shopper had I not been exposed to music that encouraged me to think for myself. (I.E. John Lennon's noisier stuff, Negativland, Captain Beefheart, and anything on WFMU) It screamed at me as a child. It was hard to listen to, yes. But it screamed at me. (what did it scream?)

It said, you live on a planet with Billions of people. Millions of them make music, art, etc... Why does everyone around me only know what's on the radio? Why is everything so, one sided? Am I being programmed?

I mean think about it!! Really!

the saturation of popular American culture is destoying cultures the way animals are becoming extinct. Our women are being taught to flaunt their bodies, we are being taught crime, murder and materialism on television. And it's being broadcast around the world in dolby 5.1 digital sound with an aspect ratio of 16:4!!!

People in India watch "Baywatch", and don't tell me that beauty is decided in our own hearts. Bullshit!!! If enough poeple tell you something is good or beautiful or perfect. You'll buy it. Way back in the days of Kings and Queens, Fat people were considered beautiful. Today, it's whatever hollywood decides.

It's high time the world was "woke up" the same way I was as a child. By having someone scream at them to "Make their own path".

I have no problem with free enterprise, I have a problem with the monopolization of our media, and our minds.

All that being said...

Buy the new Eminem album, It's GRRRRRRR-eat! (sarcasm)

P.S. Bootlegs are just a harmless juxtoposition of pop music with non- pop music that has no real "Culture Jam" to it. (other than it's technically illegal under the current system.) Most people mistake The ECC's effort with the current bastardization of Bootlegs (the current being no different than what DJ's have been doing for years... It's called mixing!!)

Oh, well...

NUFF SAID

that was a honest mistake at the CD plant

I really didn't realize that, I understood it had been intentional. So my apologies, I take that back. The sweeping generalization preceeding it stands, though. .

mark s: I wasn't trying to point fingers with that 'defeatist' comment, but the clarification was appreciated nonetheless. Agreed on your subsequent points. And hey, if you really WANT to make a cast-iron case for CL, knock yourself out. Do I have to read it?

The Slacker Movement says the same thing the Matrix says. (but in a different way)

There's a Slacker Movement? And it says "I am a derivative multi-million-dollar entertainment franchise masquerading as something deep"? Wait. There is. And it DOES. Whoa.

People who take the Matrix seriously are great. Joel Silver - Adbuster?

haha i realised on rereading some of the pro-cult jam promo lit on this thread — the googlers i mean — that the reason for my kneejerk anti stance is that CJ is basically PROGRESSIVE ROCK!! And this is good, because PROG (even dumbed-up prog w/o a lot of the good bits) is something I can GET BEHIND. So I haf found me a way to say YAY CULT JAM after all.

The Matrix is Hollywood's lovesong to the Baader Meinhoff group.

It's people like Pimpdaddy that really fuck me off. Oh maaaaan keep dissing the religion dude. Keep dissing the religion and then tell us about your very non-religious organisation which is centred on the premise of spreading information, or even "the good news". Jesus at least the "single voice" in catholicism actually has a defined set of rules and a bloody god.

Ronan do you like Momus?

Is that a Momusesque thing to say?

1) The best culture jams are technically proficient and/or aesthetically pleasing even if in a weird/grisly way (ie. like an ad but with a different message). The difference between pop music bootleggers and pop music culture jammers is that the former value technical proficiency and/or aesthetic pleasure. Ergo pop music culture jammers fail as both musicians and culture jammers.

2) Unlike with adverts, it's harder for the music culture jammer to distinguish between content and form. Invariably they give up trying. Bootleggers starts with the difficulty of distinguishing between content and form in the front of their minds - it is the basis upon which their experiments rest.

3) In their drive towards unsuccesfulness, slackers are merely being derivative of jocks.

Ronan are you North or South?

At the risk of sounding ignorant, what do you mean?

Ireland, I'd guess.

Ireland is right.

Steve the Piss strikes me as OTM - me and my housemates and friends sitting around and shouting at the TV and the adverts = culture jamming, every TV viewer does already do it. The slavishly positive response to mass culture that CJ purports to offer contrast to hardly exists - CJ fails because everyone's a satirist now and most people are better at it than Negativland. Of course as any conjurer could surely tell you, you can fool people more when you let them think they're in on something - the fact that people's mode of consumption is knee-jerk critical most certainly doesn't stop them consuming. But what I'm not seeing from CJ is a way to acknowledge this which doesn't implicate itself.

I second Pimpdaddy.

Just 'cos culture jamming can be done baddly (and I'm not sure bootlegging for aesthetic pleasure counts as CJ at all) doesn't mean there isn't a serious question about control of culture; and a serious strategy of resistance which CJ aspires to.

Ronan. You sound more cynical and stupid than you probably are. PD wasn't on a religious tip. Just trying to say something heartfelt about his experience of culture and having wider possibilities opened up.

In their drive towards unsuccesfulness, slackers are merely being derivative of jocks.

tim, i can't imagine what you mean by this, as most american jocks get sent off to college at the end of their forced education either by a. mommy and daddy middle-class or b. scholarships, spend the next four-seven years drying out from high school (wherein they either a. graduate the first time or b. flunk out of one school, tuck tail, and get sent back to another.) come out of their alcohol induced haze, get a decent "starter" job, and before you know it they're on the road to careers, families and the rest. the "jock paradigm" is virtually the model for american "success" in 2002 (as it can be liberally applied across the board - with different varaibles - to band geeks, goth kids, mall punks, candy ravers, etc. etc. etc.) of course, things may be different in america, but we'll own you soon enough anyway, right? (c. 2002 "pimpdaddy.")

ronan's earlier post upthread is probably the most common sense thing anyone's posted thus far.

haha that should be things may be different in AUSTRALIA but we'll own you soon enough anyway, right? (c. 2002 "pimpdaddy.")

fight freudian grammatical slips or the TERRORISTS HAVE ALREADY WON.

Yeah things evidently are different in Australia (are only middle-class kids good at sport and popular in America?). Here, it is the second-tier kids (kids who were not the epitome of nerdishness but nonetheless were unremarkable at school in terms of public admiration) that rule the school... or, rather, everything else except school.

Massive generalisations are fun, like.

(are only middle-class kids good at sport and popular in America?)

this feels like the set up to some vast cosmic joke which gets played out 100 million times every morning.

(at least the popular part. the other Great American Cliche is of coruse that sports are the way for the disenfranchise ghetto dweller to pull themselves out of the Hell That Is Their Daily Life. [c. 1980- 92 the reagan admins.] oh, and rapping too.)

coincidence?: return of cultcha jamming with a bush in the white house.

(i miss reagan youth.)

(okay, not really.)

Me and the other Googlers googled our names and came here to find out what you were saying about us. We don't get your injokes, and we don't really understand your arguments, but we're going to tell you our opinions and then leave.

So, Culture Jamming. We were thinking about this today as we listened to Daft Punk's 'Discovery' for the first time this year. It sounded a lot less arty than it did last year, now that being '80s' is getting pretty uncontroversial. We remembered the good old days when only Les Rhythmes Digitales were doing it.

But now this stuff sounds less like metapop, and more like pop. So we agree with what Tom says: this media satire is going on all the time, it's pop eating itself and creating itself in the process. It's not cynical at all. It's how pop works. Satire requires a whole ethical framework, a Swift sitting in judgement on the world. But pop music is more like Trad. and Anon. just ripping off riffs and purloining poses. There's no big purpose behind it. That's why, if you quiz the perps, they never wax purple. Even Alec Empire doesn't really have an empire. He's just a bloke with an ear and a sampler, like everyone else.

Must dash, more Googling to do. John, do you like Mark S?

"(are only middle-class kids good at sport and popular in America?)

this feels like the set up to some vast cosmic joke which gets played out 100 million times every morning."

Point taken. It's easy to forget about the blatant aspirationalism/ self-deception at the heart of the American psyche. Australia has a bit of that too, but on the whole we trick people into ignoring the CONTRADICTION OF CAPITALISM by patiently explaining to them over and over again that success is for the dickhead who doesn't get the girl, so misery caused by their lack of success is a fair trade off. In summary this means the not so rich kids can be popular as well as the rich kids, before life stamps them back into the ground when they leave school.

the sad thing is that i think a great many american kids would take that "popular now/fucked later" trade off, in lieu of what they have, which is well, fuck-all.

in high school i was hardly class conscious, because a. my "political" views were about as nacent and nuanced as you'd expect them to be, and b. the majority of my high school fell into the basic rubric of "middle-class" (at various points before i turned 18 i was everything from upper-middle to lower-middle class, which should give you a good indication of how rapidly class strata can shift here.) we probably had all of about 20 black kids in my graduating class, and of course their "integration" was based on their in-line wealth, good looks, smarts and/or atheleticism like everyone else in my school. my area was almost defiantly upwardly mobile: all brand-new housing developments and high-end minimalls.

but looking back on it now there were certainly any number of lower- middle and lower class kids: you can "tell" just by flipping through my yearbook. the level of disdain for these kids wasn't overt, it was almost subliminal (which in a way makes it worse, i think. like subconscious racism/homophobia. we're definitely at a hearts and minds stage class-wise too.) you know the drill: shop class, vocational/technical kids, basically everyone who gets fucked over class consciousness-wise in america's mad rush for the college diploma.

meanwhile i grew up in a generation of future middle managers and guys who will be misfiling my tax return. these kids were fucked over by everyone else not because they're middle-class (because obviously joey and jenny high school senior aren't thinking in those terms) but because they don't have the right clothes, hair, accessories, a car, a job where they're not flipping burgers or pumping gas (even in high school this shit matters to people!!...sorry, it just makes me incredulous for the human race.) basically the same reasons american teenagers have been getting fucked over since wally and the beav.

we've really mutated this thread somethin good.

fucked over by each other, that is.

another interesting aspect of american teenagers and class is how easy it seems (to the non discerning eye...basically anyone not in high school) for someone of lesser means to now appear more wealthy/popular, yet like all eliza doolittle-like, their "social betters" can instantly tell (i.e. if you think 16 yr. old girl doesn't know the difference between old navy and abercrombie, you are sadly mistaken old man.)

$10 american to whoever can tie this in with culture jamming.

(hint, it's not as far off as one might think.)

Well that's the thing, it's these received cultures that we're talking about that need to be jammed, full stop, and not just the advertisements that support and advocate them (Ads whose defilement = impossibly insignificant in grand scale of things).

More and more I realise how precious Australia's (fast- degrading) tertiary education system is, where attendance is not automatically preceded by privilege.

Well that's the thing, it's these received cultures that we're talking about that need to be jammed, full stop, and not just the advertisements that support and advocate them (Ads whose defilement = impossibly insignificant in grand scale of things).

agreed, of course. i suppose my point is that oswald/ecc etc. aren't fufilling my jamming needs by getting their rocks off thinking their smarter than the same pop fans you and i were (however obliquely) talking about in the above posts. so you're smarter than a 16 year old girl, hurrah.

(except, i don't think they are smarter than 16 year olds necessarily, girls or otherwise. frank kogan wrote an excellent piece on this, more or less, which i'm still digesting - sorry frank if you're reading, i will get back to you with my ideas if you still even care! - class culture in "rock crit" is almost a forgone conclusion whenever you crack open a spin or rolling stone. the needs, desires, and recieved values of rock critics put them at odds with most pop fans.)

tim, if its not too much off-topic (haha, like that matters anymore), i was wondering how you felt about "recieved-culture" re. garage, which seems to me to be ("cuturally") the fucked, anti-rave of all the rave diaspora.

as in does it need to be jammed. (and when a dance scene is usually "jammed" why does it always just mean lame idm.)

John, South of Ireland, Dublin specifically. Why do you ask?

Also Phil, I'd rather be cynical and stupid than a religious yahoo. hahahah. Will you guys be making a name for the god?

name of god = Steve The Piss

It shall be written, it shall be done.

I should note that it wasn't googling that brought StopChildren and PimpDaddySupreme here, but me. They're on the snuggles list that I mentioned and I figured the list would be interested, so I sent along the link.

This talk about ECC is funny because I think people are reading more into what he's doing than he actually is. It's worth noting that Mark G isn't out to change the world with culture jamming, from what I can tell, he's just out to do some things that sound interesting while playing fast and loose with copyright. Any boasting that he's doing at his website, well I'm guessing that you're missing the tongue firmly in his cheek. (I say this because I've known the guy for years and years, since the late 80s, and he's never been anything less than an amiable goofball type, never some hardcore jammer.)

Other generic comments about Naomi Klein, Adbusters, sweatshops and ripping the labels out of your clothes here. Jess, gimme that $10.

Ronan, you missed my point exactly. I'm not dissing religion, government, corporations, or my grandmother...

I'm simply saying that they can get "out of control" and certain amounts of resisitance to keep them in check is a good thing.

Small children are killed everyday, while sad, it keeps the population explosion down. There're already over 6 billion of us on this (excuse me) God-forsaken planet. Even with the deaths of Millions the overall population of the world continues to grow.

As far as religion goes... (sorry to say it, but) Fuck em' all. Spirituality is far beyond anyone standing on a pulpit telling you what to believe. If you want to believe in something, believe in yourself. Know, that if there is a God, he will speak to you in some way (most religions say that don't they?) whether that speaking is Directly to you in the form of a burning bush or just the calm feeling you get from watching a sunset.

It's the people who claim to be enlightened that you need to rebuke.

your spiritual beliefs are a very personal thing. Religion was supposed to be a way to share the joy of a common belief, yet turned into a way to control the masses through guilt.

What does this have to do with culture jamming? once again I'll explain.

at one time Religion was more powerful than Government soon Government excluded Religion and became the power Now, Corporations are buying out Government and we'll all be owned by what we own!!!

It was Adolf Hitler who said (basically) the easiest way to take over a country is to get the children to think about Sex and Violence and themselves.

That's what's been done over the years with our parents and now the generation below ours. It basically makes us not care about anything except Playstation HBO and Playboy. The drugs we smoke and the britney spears lookalike next door who (with her training from MTV) will be as slutty as we want her (even though she's twelve).

Meanwhile, the government is bought and sold out from under us and our freedoms are given away.

Now if a parody-plunderphonic-Culture Jamming piece of artwork can make me wake up and grow into a politically aware being hellbent on changing things... then HELL YES LETS JAMMM MOTHER-F**KER!!!

Christianity tells you to "witness" to people in their everyday life by leading the life you see as "Right and Just"

Well, I'm poor as fuck and I still take time out to tour around the country and play my music (as subversive as it is) for crowds. I don't pull punches in my words and I'm always one to rant about what's going down. Culture Jamming in today's world is as important as fighting against England when this country was born. The Tea Party?? (Culture Jamming) Etc,ETC,Etc....

I'll post more when you guys comment on this..

"Now if a parody-plunderphonic-Culture Jamming piece of artwork can make me wake up and grow into a politically aware being hellbent on changing things" - if it actually did this you might have a point. As it is the collected efforts of Culture Jamming haven't equaled Matt Damon dropping Howard Zinn's name in Good Will Hunting. The Boston Tea Party (which was as much action as speech) led to a direct, tangible change, ie actual revolution. Again, show me one piece of actual change that can be directly tied to culture jamming, a phenomenon/"movement" nearly twenty years old now. If culture jamming was even remotely revolutionary the corporate monolith wouldn't be so ready to coopt it.

I am looking for the STRONG and INTERESTING argt. for "culture jamming" but cannot find it. The problem being, I think, that it reveals nothing new. If someone defaces a poster, you agree or disagree depending on whether you already agree with or disagree with the content of their message. Culture Jamming's co-option = "The Truth" campaign and the anti-drug campaign's latest manifestations, no? The problem being, I think, that everybody is cynical about media, and everybody is cynical about advertisements, and while it may vent stress to take the piss out of them, it doesn't teach anything new. Most importantly, perhaps, Culture Jamming leaves no room for the STRONG and INTERESTING defenses of what culture that does exist, so denies the appeal that keeps us coming back. Denies that that appeal must be replaced, not abolished and denies that attempts to abolish it usually come at great psychic cost.

Further Culture Jamming co-option: Sprite's "Think for Yourself" ad campaign.