The nursery rhyme, sing-song tempo of the copy ("You Bomb Me. I Bomb You. Monkey See. Monkey Do.") is subverted by its own meaning, and the graphic chaos that fills the four corners of the poster. There is seemingly nowhere to escape the sheer absurdity of world powers engaged in a game of bomb ping-pong. Which begs the question: are monkeys our genealogical past or future?
Collected conversations. Recorded voices. Sound bytes. Transcribed, compartmentalized and given meaning without context.
Graffiti/Street Art appropriates the canvas of urban brick and concrete, noise and dirt– and subverts it into something beautiful and intentionally-provoking. It is defiant and transformative.
Operating in the shadows of our government is a network of multinational corporations -- existing without checks and balances and outside the law. They lobby, contribute, and manipulate to ensure that our elected officials, our very President, is a farce -- just another sock puppet controlled by the power of their purse.
We want transparency. We want accountability. Let the red curtain be drawn and the puppeteers revealed.
Swarming around this everyman, this generic figure -- seemingly filling every space, unyielding, inescapable -- are dollar signs. We are dazzled and stupefied by this symbol that we love, and equally love to hate.
Fight them off. Create a currency of ideas, vision, and meaning.
The media is a puppet in the hands of the corporations who own them, and hence own truth. Through this puppeteering or manipulation, the media agencies blatantly endorse specific thoughts, advertisements, and products instead of reporting unbiased news.
The marionette figure, with hands raised and knee bent, is engaged in the dance the media does around its parent corporations and sponsors. With microphone in hand and Press pass ready to flash, the satirical figure is more circus than serious.
The corporations pull strings. The media plays upon our heartstrings. We are being strung along, and entangled, by both.
Today, the building blocks of America are those billion-dollar brands, which trespass and crowd our space like a concrete skyline. Brand America is a nation of giants and conglomerates, and we the people are manufactured by corporate logos. The big brands tower above us—cluttering our landscape with cubicles of pre-packaged thought, and blocking our view with stock images and empty slogans. Capitalism isn’t Culture. And so, Brand America, we respectfully, give you the finger.
The whip of censorship, ugly and heavy-handed, is upon us. Our freedom is caged, our voice a silent and oppressed tongue. Free speech is an impossibility, and this reality UNSPEAKABLE.
Unified and outraged, we will self-assert with unwavering strength to resist the current that tries to sweep us out to sea.
Our breathing room, our surfaces, and our airwaves are cluttered by undue advertising. Why sacrifice the one area suitable to protest, the only space we have left to claim - our body. We will not allow ourselves to be branded, categorized, and manufactured by a name.
We will shout without saying a word, and you will hear the revolution when you read our chest.
We cannot fully experience what is kept locked up in a pretty-ribboned box labeled "safe". We are kept on-leash and on-guard -- and our language, blindfolded with a fumbling tongue.
Television sucks you in, evaporating your energy and diminishing your will to think. We sit limp and stare thoughtless in front of a box that never lets us disagree, interact, or talk back. We absorb the artificial, the fake -- corporate-sponsored News disguised as truth, the plastic sitcom disguised as vibrant life.
It is not a babysitter; it is not your best friend; it is not art; it is not exercise. Moderate your use. Turn it off to make time for loving, playing, painting, and reading. Trash your TV.
The nursery rhyme, sing-song tempo of the copy ("You Bomb Me. I Bomb You. Monkey See. Monkey Do.") is subverted by its own meaning, and the graphic chaos that fills the four corners of the poster. There is seemingly nowhere to escape the sheer absurdity of world powers engaged in a game of bomb ping-pong. Which begs the question: are monkeys our genealogical past or future?