Culture Jamming 101
I taught a class about Culture Jamming at Syracuse University in the Spring ’09 and the Spring ’10. The students in the class continually surprised me by producing some excellent activist art. There were students from various programs including Computer Art, Video Art, Film, Design, Business, and Photo Art. This mix of students allowed for an amazing collaborative experience in the assigned group projects. Assignments in the course include a mock billboard liberation, a shop dropping act, video press releases, as well as any original ideas/actions the students could improvise. Below is a sampling of the students’ work, however you can see all of the students’ assignments at the course website.
If you would like more information and to see more student work from the class, visit the Culture Jamming Course Website.
Excerpt from the Culture Jamming Course Syllabus
Culture Jamming is a course designed to explore unconventional art practice in public spaces and mass media. Based on a survey of historical concepts ranging from the mythological trickster to contemporary Hacktivists, the content of this course focuses on the Flaneur, Civil Disobedience, Situationism, Billboard Liberation, Alternative TV, Media Interventions, Pirate Radio, Copyright, and Art and Activism in North America.
The objectives of the course are to educate students in current mass media, marketing and economic practices and their relation to the psyche of the individual. This will hopefully spark what the Situationists called detournement, a jarring revelation that allows the artist to reclaim the spectacular nature of society from multi-national corporations by subverting the meaning of original images, environments, ambiences, and events. But most importantly, students should have fun and not take this class or themselves too seriously.
In addition to historical research, students will be involved in class discussions, write press releases, design and carry out individual and team-based art/activist projects. Documentation in form of a press packet of culture jamming projects will be encouraged for submission to media outlets.
