Jamming with Cultures
in the Spectacle

Presented at San Francisco State University (2022)

​​​

“Culture jamming” commonly refers to a variety of actions deployed by anti-consumerism activists to expose, critique, and subvert dominant cultural institutions. The concept can be traced back to Situation International (SI), an organization of social revolutionaries led by Guy Debord in the 1950s. The situationists devoted themselves to the construction of situations so as to interrupt, sabotage, hi-jack, and reappropriate consumerist society—in a

word, “liberate” the citizens from becoming consumers. “Jamming,” in this sense, is associated with somewhat negative connotations: to clog the flow of market-driven mainstream culture.

 

The media evolves, and so do jammers. One-way communications such as radio and television are not as influential as they once were, thanks to web 2.0 and social media. For good or bad, global citizens are culture “prosumers”: when we post a selfie on Instagram, which is conveniently connected with Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and so on, we give these

social media the favor of free exposure. In other words, while we indulge in our leisure time, we also produce exchange values for the big companies. Similarly, postmodern jammers can hardly claim to occupy a position outside of consumerist society, as the Situationists had with their sober whistleblowing. Rather than standing outside the muddy

water, jammers find themselves living in a complex global Spectacle.

​

Scholar and musician Mark Levine reclaims the musical connotation of cultural jamming. In this light, an alternative understanding comes into play: in jazz jamming sessions, musicians listen to each other and playfully improvise together; similarly, culture jammings deploy digital platforms to play with , rather than fighting against , the Spectacle. Drawing from Levine, this video essay surveys contemporary jammings with cultures: the (in)famous artist Banksy and reappropriations of his legacy; Rubber Duck vs. the Tank Man; and Clubhouse.

 

The Spectacle’s capacity of assimilating the potentially subversive content is hard to deny. Postmodern jammers’ embracement of innovative media platforms, I argue, need not be considered sellout behavior. Levine’s musical analogy of cultural jamming allows us to step out of the counterculture vs. counterproductive bind, and explore the continuing practices of jamming with cultures in the Spectacle.