Editor’s note: pranks.com editor Joey Skaggs appeared at the 1st Influencers event in 2004. You can check it out here.

Eva and Franco Mattes aka 0100101110101101.ORG and Bani present:

The Influencers, a free three day event, Thursday, February 28 - March 1, 2008, at the Centre de Cultura Contemporánea de Barcelona (CCCB), dedicated to imaginative subversion of contemporary mediascape. Focusing on the first hand testimony of some of the protagonists of the international scene, the festival is a selection of the most subtle, elegant and visionary proposals of parallel narratives in the realm of media and global popular culture.

The Influencers explores controversial forms of art and communication guerrilla, presenting independent projects that play with global popular culture, infiltrate the mass media, and transform fashions, consumption and technological fetishism.

The key to The Influencers is found in its guests and stories: impostors, pseudo-totalitarian musicians, conceptual hackers, deviant geographers, anarchitects and actors from invisible theatre. In these three days they are going to present their work, show known and less known material and speak with the public about challenges, goals and strategies.

See you all in Barcelona!

By NeonBunny:

Call for Art/Music in San Francisco:
Themed Collage/Sample/Culture Jams
February 11, 2008:

I am part of a collective that has been producing a community based culture jam event in San Francisco on March 22nd, Easter Eve.

And yes, we’re a theme party with the theme of bunnies. And we’re one of those theme parties that takes our theme and shoves it so far down people’s throats, they’re pooping our theme out for weeks.

It’s all about bunnies, easter, spring, and all the sugar coated cultural references that go along with it (this year, St. Patricks day is the same weekend as Easter, so we’ve added that as or sub-theme).

In keeping with our theme, we are seeking out new and original content.

Audio: Performance and music based artists that explore culture jamming. (And while we do love normal dj dance music like house and trance, it’s not really what we’re going for. We’d much rather have people say “wft????” than “aw, that’s some funky beats I can dance too”. Although, if you can combine it into “wtf??? This music is so weird, but yet, I can not stop dancing!”, then you score an A+)

Visual: We are lacking on floor space this year. Our venue does not have any big open areas, but instead has lots of little nooks and crannies (we’re more of a warren/cave like space than a big warehouse space). A big installation that would take up a 20′ x 20′ space, not gonna work. The type of thing that would work at the end of a hallway, and becomes a hidden discovery that people will remember for years to come, that will work. Interactive, performance, wall hanging art with a bunny theme, we love you!

If you think you might be the type of artist who creates content that would fit our vision, please email me sfaaron26@yahoo.com so we can talk further, or send me a message here.

Prank has prairie dog roaming
by Lynn Bartels
Rocky Mountain News
February 12, 2008

The photographs keep coming, and Senate Majority Leader Ken Gordon keeps laughing.

A state Capitol prankster who kidnapped Gordon’s 2-foot fiberglass prairie dog in January regularly sends the Denver Democrat pictures of the errant critter in various locales.

Here’s the prairie dog in London, his Superman costume covered by a shirt from the the University of Michigan, Gordon’s alma mater.

There’s the dog’s paw on a champagne bottle with a cork flying. “Happy birthday, Senator Gordon! P-Dog” reads the message on the card, which arrived Feb. 6, Gordon’s 58th birthday.

There’s Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, holding one of their adopted kids and “P-Dog,” as the prankster has taken to calling the prairie dog.

(more…)

Submitted by William of FORA.tv:

FORA.tv presents Joline Blais, in cooperation with the Long Now Organization, discussing the artwork of the Yes Men’s internet pranks that focus the world’s attention on big corporations and global political entities.

Joline Blais is co-author of At the Edge of Art with Jon Ippolito.

Related links:

A Ball Bonanza at the Spanish Steps
by Mike Nizza
January 16, 2008
The Lede

Updated, 3:49 p.m., scroll for video.

A greyish 18th-century landmark in Rome was transformed into a colorful mess today when a half-million plastic balls were dumped at the top of the Spanish Steps.

The balls bounced downhill before filling the Barcaccia fountain, leaving surprised passers-by and tourists snapping pictures of a scene that recalled the indoor-playground ball pits that spark joyful frolicking by children of all ages.

Many people collected some of the balls and took them away as an “unforgettable souvenir of this event,” which was pulled off by Graziano Cecchini, the man who turned Trevi Fountain blood-red last October.

“It is an artistic operation that documents with art the problems that we have in Italy,” Mr. Cecchini said at the scene. He was later detained by police, news agencies reported. (more…)

Bad Santas dash through Christchurch cinema
TVNZ
December 24, 2007

Media outlets across the world are broadcasting pictures of a group bad behaving Santas on a rampage through a Christchurch movie theatre.

Around 30 Santas took a 40-second dash through Hoyts Cinema.

An eye witness said there were “Santas everywhere” causing chaos, kicking over signs and a Christmas tree.

“I thought they were funny at first but it got out of hand and I started to get scared,’ says movie goer Jackson Gorman.

Once the misbehaving Santas reached cinema number five, they set off the fire alarm before leaving.

Two hundred cinema goers were evacuated.

“There was some planning involved. They all came in together, they all went through, they all knew where they were going,” says Hoyts Cinema spokesperson Derek Rive. Read the rest of the story here.

Editor’s note: This brings to mind the chance meeting Joey Skaggs had with the then fledgling New Zealand Cacophony Society while strolling in Auckland on Christmas Eve of 2000.

But this latest effort is probably not their work…

Update, December 24, 2007: Anarchists in the Aisles? Stores Provide a Stage, The New York Times

From Ryan Watkins-Hughes of Shopdropping.net:

Shopdropping.net has two upcoming projects and is seeking participants.

Call #1:

Shopdropping.net is now calling on artists, designers, media makers, and creative folks to purchase greeting cards and alter them in any way they see fit. Any form of commercial card, from wedding to graduation to birthday to bereavement, is eligible. But clever and witty will be given preference over easy and distasteful. 

Please submit JPEG reproductions of the altered greeting cards to submissions@shopdropping.net with Greetings as the subject line. 

All files must be sized to 1024 x 768 at 72 dpi. Each altered card must include the text “www.shopdropping.net” somewhere in the new design. It can be discreet, on the back of the card, and unobtrusive but it must be present.When submitting the cover and inside of the same card please indicate this clearly in the file titles (for example “cover.jpg”, “page2.jpg”). 

The deadline for submissions is April 1st 2008. (more…)

Argentina Answers To the Crazy Call Of Dr. Tangalanga
by Matt Moffett
The Wall Street Journal
December 15, 2007

Phone Prankster Spouting Nonsense Delights Crowds…

Buenos Aires — Last month, 700 people turned out at a nightclub to celebrate Julio de Rizio’s 91st birthday. Mr. de Rizio himself provided the entertainment, using a telephone hooked up to the audio system.

He dialed a convenience store and, in a tone that was civility itself, inquired about closing time. “I’m asking because I’m going to rob you at 3 a.m.,” he told the startled clerk.

Mr. de Rizio then made harassing calls to a middle-aged comic-book collector and to a fellow who was offering his services as pop vocalist. He got him to belt out a few bars — badly off-key. Finally, he called a handyman who had advertised that he would take care of “everything your husband doesn’t have time to fix.” Mr. de Rizio went off on a bawdy riff about not having time to satisfy his wife. He asked the flustered handyman whether he could fix that.

Mr. de Rizio, known by his stage name, Dr. Tangalanga, has won fame and fans throughout Latin America for making prank phone calls. His devotees call him “the telephone avenger” for the verbal pummeling he inflicts on inept or unscrupulous service providers — quack healers, tarot card charlatans, butchers with heavy thumbs and builders who misfire their caulk-guns. (more…)

As reported by Alex Boese of The Museum of Hoaxes, December 4, 2007:

Sell my DNA

SellMyDna.com offers to help you sell a sample of your DNA to a research company, New Line Genetics, who will then obtain a patent for it. They pay $5000!

Better yet, you can even sell your friend’s DNA, because once a cell leaves their body, it no longer belongs to them. From their website:

SellMyDNA.com does not condone the patenting of other’s DNA without their permission. However, what better way to surprise your loved ones for a birthday or holiday event than giving the gift of $5,000 and the knowledge that their genetic material is helping to enhance scientific research!

However SellMyDna.com is not a real company, as you can find out if you dig deep enough into it’s site and come across the disclaimer: “these sites are a satirical “what if” pertaining to something that, for all intents and purposes, could be a reality in the not-so-distant future.”

Wired’s science blog reports that SellMyDna.com was created by Anthony Martin, whose myspace profile states, “I am striving to make the world a better place and usher in the new era of human evolution with the use of accelerated genetics techniques.”

From monochrom:

Hans Dichand, born in 1921, founded the Austrian “Kronenzeitung” (”Crown newspaper”) in 1959 and still acts as its editor in chief to this day. With over 40% market share, this right-wing populist paper has a unique position of power, and Dichand used this to influence Austrian politics to a great extent. This media-political practice earned him the nickname of “Kanzlermacher” (”He who makes the chancellor”).

Shortly after Mr. Dichand started blogging in November 2007, another weblog under his name appeared, where an unknown writer spoofs the newsmaker by using his rather unique tabloid writing style to express views and ideas contrary to those of the original, and to poke fun at the mighty newsmaker.

This fake blog has gathered quite a bit of media attention over the last weeks, especially since the original Dichand saw it necessary to write about “The Forger,” as the fake blogger has been called on numerous occasions.

Let us spray: Banksy hits Bethlehem
by Sheera Claire Frenkel
The Times
December 3, 2007

With Christmas around the corner and tourists staying away, Bethlehem has turned to an unlikely source to help to revive its suffering economy: graffiti.

The “guerrilla artist” Banksy has helped to transform the security barrier that surrounds the town with more than a dozen satirical images painted, plastered and sprayed on to the 8m-high (26ft) concrete. The work winds a trail to the heart of the city at Manger Square, where more than a dozen pieces are housed directly across from the Church of the Nativity.

Banksy’s work, in his trademark stencil style, takes ironic jabs at life in the West Bank. In one, a young girl in a pink dress searches a soldier for weapons. In another a dove carrying an olive branch is outfitted with a bullet-proof vest while a sniper aims at the bird’s chest.

The seasonal exhibition, entitled Santa’s Ghetto, began life six years ago as an “anarchic concept gallery” above an East End pub, and has become a London institution. By taking the idea to the West Bank, the artist hoped to shine a light on the plight of Bethlehem. (more…)

From Charlie Todd of Improv Everywhere:

The 7th Annual No Pants! Subway Ride will take place on Saturday, January 12 in New York. Save the date.

Detailed information will be available in early January.

Check out No Pants 2K7 here.

Update: November 27, 2007, From Craig Baldwin of Other Cinema / Digital — Negativland’s DVD/CD project, Our Favorite Things, co-produced by Other Cinema Digital and Seeland Records, launches on December 1, 2007 at 8:30 p.m. at 992 Valencia (@ 21st) in the Mission, San Francisco.

The albums were created in collaboration with 18 makers from all over the US (and one a cappella group from Detroit). Famous mixes like Gimme the Mermaid, No Business, Time Zones, Guns, Christianity Is Stupid, Drink It Up, Truth in Advertising, and U2: I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For serve as audio ground for new visual collages from the likes of Tim Maloney, Harold Boihem, Mike Cousino, RRoom, and James Gladman. Some band members will be in attendance for a short LIVE performance on “boopers,” their homemade feedback oscillators. PLUS the debut of Kembrew McLeod’s Freedom of Expression, a critical doc on intellectual property issues in the contemporary corporate mediascape.*$7

Earlier post from August 9, 2007:

From Fanatic Promotion:

Legendary culture jam-band Negativland announces upcoming release of Our Favorite Things DVD.

“Declared heroic by their peers for refashioning culture into what the group considers to be more honest statements, Negativland suggests that refusing to be original, in the traditional sense, is the only way to make art that has any depth within commodity capitalism…” – The New York Times (more…)

Julian Morrow, Dom Knight and Craig Reucassell
November 23, 2007
ABC New South Wales

Julian Morrow, Dom Knight and Craig Reucassell are all members of ABC TV’s hit program The Chaser. The boys started out writing a satirical newspaper and are now notorious pranksters. Recent stunts include impersonating Osama bin Laden and breaching security at the APEC summit in Sydney and they are regularly seen heckling politicians. Their new book is called The Chaser Annual 2007 - The Other Secret.

Election ‘07 has proved harder for The Chaser because they have become so recognisable. “People are just expecting us to be everywhere. I think there’s a special squad in the Federal Police now which is dedicated to Chaser counter-insurgency, but on the other side of things the movement of the campaigns to YouTube has created a rich new source of material for us,” Julian says.

A lot of work goes into their stunts. “Andrew Denton really schooled us in making television, [he said] the stunts really have to be funny on the page before you go out there. You have to know exactly what you’re going to do. We have a bunch of people in our art department who put in the really hard yards of making material that is probably going to be funny when you take it out even when, as often happens, we swallow our lines, stuff it up, have to do a second take,” Julian explains. (more…)

From the Web site of Dan Witz:

Street art for me has always meant freedom from my artist’s game–galleries, the career machine, all that frustrating, soul sucking bullshit. Going out on a street mission is my unsupervised playtime–no responsibility, no expectations, no need to worry about the artwork’s life outside that moment. Dan Witz, round-table discussion from The Morning News.

(more…)