Monday, September 04, 2006

banksy punks vapid celebrity's new product

banksy records personal documentary type of video. clever artist.


bbc news article below (from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5310416.stm). includes details of the event documented in the above video (he visited 6 cities, placed 500). statements from banksy's spokeswoman (that sounds like a cool job). and some surprising admissions from big record company spokesmodels. banksy is a clever fellow -- i think he will be in the art history books.

as i was writing this, i started thinking about how much the banksy cds would cost on ebay;
(1) ended Sep-04-06 08:59:43 PDT; this cd, 1 of 500 placed so far,
had 1 bid and sold for 350 pounds/ 666.75 usd.
(2) as i write this, with 13 hours, 6 minutes to go, there are 3 on ebay.
(a) the one going first is up to 370 pounds/704.85 usd (with 13 hours to go); and
(3) an entrepreneur named manksy (or something like that) has set up shop and is selling "burnt" copies; bootlegs = less art value, true fan; buy it now for 29.99 gbp/ 57.13 usd.


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Paris Hilton targeted in CD prank
Hundreds of Paris Hilton albums have been tampered with in the latest
stunt by "guerrilla artist" Banksy. Banksy has replaced Hilton's CD
with his own remixes and given them titles such as Why am I Famous?,
What Have I Done? and What Am I For?

He has also changed pictures of her on the CD sleeve to show the US
socialite topless and with a dog's head.

A spokeswoman for Banksy said he had doctored 500 copies of her debut
album Paris in 48 record shops across the UK.

She told the BBC News website: "He switched the CDs in store, so he
took the old ones out and put his version in."

But he left the original barcode so people could buy the CD without
realising it had been interfered with.

Banksy is notorious for his secretive and subversive stunts such as
sneaking doctored versions of classic paintings into major art
galleries. His spokeswoman said he had tampered with the CDs in
branches of HMV and Virgin as well as independent record stores.

He visited cities including Bristol, Brighton, Birmingham, Newcastle,
Glasgow and London, she added.

A spokesman for HMV said the chain had recovered seven CDs from two
Brighton shops but was unaware that other locations were affected.

Artistic leeway

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

"It's not the type of behaviour you'd want to see happening very
often," he said.

"I guess you can give an individual such as Banksy a little bit of
leeway for his own particular brand of artistic engagement.

"Often people might have a view on something but feel they can't
always express it, but it's down to the likes of Banksy to say often
what people think about things.

"And it might be that there will be some people who agree with his
views on the Paris Hilton album."

A spokesman for Virgin Megastores said staff were searching for
affected CDs but it was proving hard to find them all.

"I have to take my hat off - it's a very good stunt," he added.

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