| Culture jamming may not be the answer to all of society’s problems, but it will at the very least provoke a reaction from its audience. That audience is you.
Most people in our society interact with media on a daily basis and a great number of those media are controlled by commercial interests. So if we are required to process an enormous number of stimuli, many of which are generated to profit from our attention, how are we to cope? One answer is to undermine commercial culture with non- or anti-commercial messages, exposing the problems inherent to that culture in the process.
That’s a fairly simple definition of culture jamming, and it doesn’t necessarily encapsulate every jammer’s philosophy. But after watching Vancouver filmmaker Jill Sharpe’s documentary Culture Jam, one gets the idea that the desire to use humour to monkey-wrench the status quo ties the film’s diverse subjects together.
"I think humour is extremely powerful, especially in this day and age," says Sharpe. "A lot of people feel washed over by the issues coming at them, or maybe powerless, but what’s wonderful about culture jamming is… that it has an immediate impact."
Sharpe interviews a Toronto woman who puts little subversive stickers on advertisements posted in public places. She also documents the much more co-ordinated efforts of San Francisco’s Billboard Liberation Front – which, for example, alters Camel cigarette billboards to read "Am I Dead Yet." Finally, she goes to New York City, where a street performer who calls himself Reverend Billy preaches against the Walt Disney Corporation’s use of sweatshop labourers – and he does it right inside the Times Square Disney store.
What all of these inspiring activists have in common is their desire to shock us out of our complacent consumption of commercial advertising (and material goods) and into new perspectives on what it means to be a citizen in our society.
For Sharpe, the film questions the commodification of the mental environment.
"Right now there’s really very few laws protecting it," she says. "(Culture jamming) is one of the reactions, maybe, that’s coming…. Why is it that so far the majority of our mental space is owned by corporations?"
Her film doesn’t necessarily provide the answers to that question, but it certainly provokes discussion about both the necessity for action and the shape that action should take.
"Not all culture jammers are earnest," she says.
"It’s a radical art form. It comes from Guy Debord, the Situationists… certain political movements have taken on the tactics, but it’s far deeper than ‘Let’s just get a political message out.’ It’s questioning how you move in society."
Director Jill Sharpe will be in attendance at the January 24 screenings of Culture Jam. Admission is free with a donation to the Calgary Interfaith Food Bank. Sharpe will also conduct a workshop called "Injecting radical ideas into mainstream media" on January 25. For more information, check the Calgary Society of Independent Filmmakers Web site at www.csif.org. |
