I've never actually heard of culture jamming, which I suppose is the point. Shamefully, I had to first turn to Wikipedia to get a general understanding of this 'movement'. Turning away from all mainstream social mentalities, culture jamming has no specific political message or is defined by any group, but the one thing in common is the tendency to poke fun at the homogeneous nature of popular culture. Its main platform is through guerilla communication, taking images that are often found in popular culture and turning them around to make fun of the message the original portrays.
Culture jammers are generally anti-establishment, going against forms of news media, government, etc. Coined by the collage band Negativland on its release JamCon '84, the phrase comes from the idea of radio jamming: public frequencies can be pirated and subverted for independent communication or the disruption of dominant frequencies. Culture jammers are thereby taking over public space or objects and using it for their own purposes or to disrupt the public's use of the space or object.
One thing I like about culture jamming is that the anonymity lets artists be bold and explore intense messages that may be hard to work on inside an institutionalized structure. It lets artists take something they're passionate and disregard all societal rules and regulations; the world is their platform, and they're not afraid to use it.
But it's hard to build a community on a base of anonymous faces. Culture jamming is like complaining without coming up with a way to fix the problem; these pieces are interesting and get a loud message across, but don't offer society any solutions to changing the lack of individuality and innovation within the structure. Culture jamming doesn't seem to bring people together, but tears them apart by pointing out flaws that come off as 'preaching' if done in the wrong way. That's why humor is important to culture jamming pieces; if not done in a smart way, people will fail to see the message because they're too concerned with the blatantness.
It's interesting how some forms of culture jamming can become a part of mainstream culture, even though they are trying to go against society in their work. Artists like Shepard Fairey and Bansky started out as guerilla artists, promoting their work through dominating public spaces, but now have become icons in the art world. When does a culture jammer become too popular and they can no longer be associated with the movement?
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