Disobeying Paris
The new work of semiotic disobedience by London-based Banksy could be described as an absolutely brilliant contribution to the field. An article published in the BBC site early September explains the details of this superb stunt of messaging substitution.
In true alignment with Sonia Katyal’s definition of the recently coined concept that defines semiotic disobedience as a type of expression that “seeks to occupy and replace some forms of corporate speech in favor of an alternative message,” Bansky literally replaced Paris’ new album with his own interpretation of it in several record stores in the UK.
I find Bansky’s intervention extremely interesting because it leverages the democratic nature of new media in order to produce a piece of work that accomplishes something almost impossible for a guerrilla artist just a few years ago. The final piece is an album, as real as the one produced by the big corporate sponsorship, which amplifies his message to a whole new level.
What would be even more interesting is if Paris decides to fight back and intelligently intervene one of Bansky’s outdoor pieces, or perhaps follow him and make a music video. Anyway, in my view, the concept of semiotic disobedience could potentially burst into something more real if it ignores the good versus bad, art versus advertising, activists versus corporates dichotomies.
In any case we should appreciate and be grateful for the artist's contribution to a global conversation about nothing. I promise to write a review of the album (which I heard is remixed à la plunderphonics) as soon as I can get my hands on it.
I would like to thank my friends from Mogollon for bringing this article to my attention.
