Most important to any fake story is a plausible, realistic edge with a satirical twist that is topical. |
Most reporters who come to me get their stories directly from press releases. Very few do what one would consider to be their professional duty. |
My art became very public. |
My challenge as a satirical artist is how to present ideas to people to enable them to question and reexamine their beliefs. |
My hope is that my work provokes people to look at things in a new way. |
Other times you can use a calendar to predict the kinds of stories the media is looking for. |
Revelation is the most important aspect of the process. That's the point where consciousness can change. |
Satire and believability are irresistible to the news media. |
Sensationalism gets them every time. |
So I began doing confrontational, iconoclastic performances, bringing my artwork into the public arena, like the Easter Sunday Crucifixion in 1966, which started when I dragged a 200-pound ten-foot-tall sculpture depicting a decayed figure on a cross into Tompkins Square Park on the Lower East Side. |
So the fact that the media all jump on a story in a similar fashion is not surprising. The opposite, when a voice cuts through to say something different or original, is surprising. |
Technology and consciousness are evolutionary and co-dependant. Change is inevitable. Where it leads will always be a great curiosity. |
The issues of my performances vary, but most of the questions buried in the work remain the same. |
The media became not just a vehicle to get attention about an event, but a medium in itself, to be shaped and molded and instilled with my social-political agenda. |
The media is not just the message. The media is a massage. We're constantly being stroked, manipulated, adjusted, realigned, and maneuvered. |