Arse-Jamming Culture

Straight from the bookmarks of same friend who a few years ago directed my attention to Adbusters -- a friend who, by the way, wishes to remain nameless and faceless, to you, whoever "you" might be, if there is indeed a "you", the Silentio-blog reader -- is the virtual museum for the culture-jammers of the world: Subvertise.org. I'd never heard of "subvertising" before I moved to Scotland, during my first May Day demonstration, which I accidentally got caught up in on the way back from a scrumptious curry dinner. Maybe its mainly a European thing, which would, by default, interestingly, also include Canada and parts of the American Northwest (Ryan Conrad-country); or, and this is just as likely, if not more, my Midwestern past life might very well have shielded me from this delightful desecration of public advertising. Neveretheless, love them or hate them, or even just think they're silly and irrelevant, the subvertisers of the world are, a tendency toward extremism notwithstanding, trying to take back the public space, which is, of course, rapidly becoming merely a commodified amusement park, and replace it with a hint of ironic art. If the cost of this kind of vandalism is a few extra dollars for a pair of pants at the Gap that I'll never buy, well, then good on the lot of them!