'Guerrilla artist' replaces heiress's
CDs in shops with doctored versions

From the London Independent:

Inside the accompanying booklet, a picture of the heiress emerging from a luxury car has been retouched to include a group of homeless people.

In another shot, Ms Hilton's head has been superimposed on a shop window mannequin beneath a banner reading: "Thou Shalt Not Worship False Icons."

Instead of Ms Hilton's own compositions, the replacement CD features 40 minutes of a basic rhythm track over which Banksy has dubbed Ms Hilton's catchphrase "That's hot!" and other extracts from her reality TV programme The Simple Life.

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Ironically, or perhaps appropriately, these little subversive works of art, I'm sure, are far more aesthetically pleasing than the album they lampoon. Actually, I'd go so far as to say that pretty much anything or anyone satirizing Paris Hilton is going to be better than the real deal, even when it's some stupid 15 year old jock doing the bashing. But then, when one is trying to be better than the famous and meaningless hotel fortune heiress one really only has to exceed what is, admittedly, an extraordinarily low standard. Not that hard to do.

Anyway, this CD prank is the work of Banksy, who apparently is becoming evermore sophisticated and political in his work. And inspiring to boot. Banksy's example, as well as the work of Ron English and his immitators, and various other culture jammers have all got me wondering what this means in terms of theater and performance. I mean, I've devoted my life as an artist to a medium, the theater, which is institutionally dead as far as I'm concerned. Dead and mostly irrelevant, but these other guys are out there making shit happen.

I think the Yes Men, another culture jamming group who struck again in New Orleans less than a week ago, are probably onto something in terms of making theater worth a damn.

I've gotta work this out. I just can't see myself being happy if I'm lucky enough to get cast in lots of commercials. Or even a Broadway play. Or a shitty blockbuster with Tom Cruise or Vin Diesel. There's got to be more to acting than all that.

UPDATE

From the BBC courtesy of the Huffington Post, a punchline of sorts:

No customers had complained or returned a doctored version, he said.

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