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“Halliburton Solves Global Warming.” While credited to “Halliburton Emergency Products Development,” a press release with a hook like this could only be the work of one organization—notorious prankster-activists The Yes Men. Give the document a quick once-over, and you’ll find all the attributes of a typical press release: it starts with a lengthy quotation from purported Halliburton representative Fred Wolf, which serves up sound-bites from a conference on Catastrophic Loss held at a Ritz-Carlton in Florida, lauding the benefits of a new Halliburton product, “The SurvivaBall.” |
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Yes Men – Colleen Becker
“Halliburton Solves Global Warming.” While credited to “Halliburton Emergency Products Development,” a press release with a hook like this could only be the work of one organization—notorious prankster-activists The Yes Men. Give the document a quick once-over, and you’ll find all the attributes of a typical press release: it starts with a lengthy quotation from purported Halliburton representative Fred Wolf, which serves up sound-bites from a conference on Catastrophic Loss held at a Ritz-Carlton in Florida, lauding the benefits of a new Halliburton product, “The SurvivaBall.” A Dr. Northrop Goody, identified in the release as the head of Halliburton’s Emergency Products Development Unit, describes the SurvivaBall as “essentially a gated community for one,” and his supporting statements lend credence to Wolf’s claims by demonstrating just how the device would cater to managers’ climatic, nutritional, medical and communications needs. Turns out that Halliburton hasn’t actually “solved” anything, but instead has developed the means for adequately securing its executives so they can continue to turn profits in the event of apocalyptic climactic change. The SurvivaBall thus allows the company to artfully side-step inconveniences produced by its own contributions to large-scale environmental devastation. Backed up by an extensive, and thoroughly disingenuous, website at www.halliburtoncontracts.com/about/, the press release informs the reader not of actual corporate activities or government contracts, but of a phony demonstration performed by The Yes Men at the conference in Florida on May 9, 2006, while ostensibly acting on behalf of Halliburton Co., New York.
Recent subjects of an eponymous film (2003), covering their history and documenting pranks against corporations, politicians and Non-Governmental Organizations, The Yes Men are one of a small number of media-oriented activists, sometimes called “culture jammers,” who deploy the weaponry of their opponents to beat them on their home turf. Like AdBusters or the Billboard Liberation Front, The Yes Men appropriate the representational means with which corporate and political entities promote themselves to critique and subvert these same institutions. Masters of the game, Yes Men co-founders Mike Bonanno and Andy Bichlbaum have been playing at it for a number of years: they also helped establish ®™ark, known for its website featuring DIY protest projects, internet-based activism tools and calls for public participation in actions like “Throw Money Off of Tall Buildings” or “Return the Statue of Liberty to France.”
While other cultural activist groups are sometimes limited in their reach—often preaching to the choir of liberal to anarchist leftists who visit their sites or read their ‘zines—The Yes Men address the subjects of their critique as well as their supporters by infiltrating their targets to an often unbelievable degree. Practicing what they call “identity correction,” as opposed to “identity theft,” The Yes Men “impersonate big-time criminals in order to publicly humiliate them,” and this is precisely what they were up to at the Catastrophic Loss conference, initiated in response to Hurricane Katrina. Looking every bit the executive, Bichlbaum, posing as Fred Wolf, delivered a speech entitled “What Noah Knew: Old Models for New Conditions” to attendees of the “Disaster Preparedness” panel. In his speech, he encourages members of the insurance and other industries to look on the bright side of climactic change by considering ways to identify and maximize investment opportunities in the wake of disaster. He notes, for example, that Hurricane Katrina rid New Orleans of economically blighted areas while simultaneously improving real estate valuations, the Black Plague overturned outdated modes of production and trade and that Noah found himself with a monopoly on animals after the Flood. Following this dramatic introduction, Dr. Goody (aka Bonanno) demonstrates SurvivaBall’s capabilities with a panoply of visual aids while Wolf explains how the suit would protect vital corporate managers, enabling them to take advantage of the special conditions presented by large-scale natural disasters. Incredibly, panel attendees bite the Noah bait and swallow the whole story hook, line and sinker. Far from fingering Bonanno and Bichlbaum as imposters, they merely ask about the feasibility and effectiveness of the SurvivaBall.
Like the gullible audiences who unquestioningly witness and inadvertently participate in their performances, The Yes Men’s publicity materials are uncritically reiterated by outside news outlets, drawing attention not only to the fraudulence of a corporation like Halliburton, but to mass media itself. Their press releases, performances and websites are so convincing, that even while questioning the truthfulness of their content, reporters still post Yes Men information verbatim, or with little commentary.
The believability of The Yes Men’s hoaxes is enhanced by the websites they build to mimic those of their targets. Imitating the bland, information-rich interface of Halliburton’s corporate site and appropriating its human resources-inspired jargon of “community” and “volunteerism,” Yes Men’s website, like its press release, convinces the guileless visitor through form if not content. Halliburton’s corporate site is, of course, www.halliburton.com, but the Yes Men’s site at www.halliburtoncontracts.com/about/ is close enough to the corporate URL to elicit an invitation to join the “Disaster Preparedness” panel from conference organizers. According to the Yes Men, their ability to infiltrate corporate culture is contingent upon such invitations—issued in response to The Yes Men’s “identity correction” materials such as the website—which, of course, minimizes suspicion. They’ve also posed as representatives of other institutions like the World Trade Organization, an “identity correction” that prompted invitations to participate in conferences in Salzburg and Sydney, and in an interview on CNBC’s Marketwrap Europe.
Thus far, Halliburton has taken no action against The Yes Men, although conference security unsuccessfully attempted to seize unauthorized video filmed on-site by co-conspirators. Such cold shoulder treatment stands in opposition to the Bush campaign’s reaction to the prank site constructed by Bonanno and Bichlbaum while still with ®™ark. The President’s website could be found at www.GeorgeWBush.com, but ®™ark’s www.GWBush.com site was too close for comfort. Campaign officials complained to the Federal Elections Commission, and, in the heat of public debate about the site, Bush issued the much-quoted gaffe “there ought to be limits to freedom.”
While not artists per se, Bonanno and Bichlbaum’s projects have long been on the radar of new media arts organizations Rhizome.org and Eyebeam, their SurvivaBalls will be exhibited at an upcoming gallery exhibition in Germany and they are planning a sequel to the first Yes Men movie. Citing as important predecessors the Situationist International, they also admire 17th and 18th century writer Daniel Dafoe and San Francisco’s 1960s street guerillas “the Diggers.” To produce their work, the Yes Men rely on a whole host of semi-collaborative participants who make costumes and props, help with 3-D animation, shoot film and video and house and feed the Yes Men. Similarly, their non-profit projects are cooperatively funded via e-mail solicitations and their website, and with the help of awards such as the one recently received from Herb Alpert’s foundation. The Yes Men challenge traditional categories of cultural production, but the SurvivaBall is nonetheless reminiscent of a sculpture. Brainstorming about organisms that could survive global climatic change, Bonanno and Bichlbaum thought of amoebas as well as resilient vermin like ticks and roaches. These informed the SurvivaBall’s physical form, which they consider as a cross between a human, an amoeba and a blood-sucking insect. In their eyes, the SurvivaBall is a parasite, an apt metaphor for the corporation.
