Dada people – Weekend – Kommersant

For almost a quarter of a century, the American group The Yes Men, fighting global warming with the help of various kinds of fakes, shows us what is the essence of the great style of the era of globalism.

Text: Anna Tolstova

Not even 15 years have passed, and these shots have already become classics. Urgent news! The Fox News anchor raises his eyebrows in amazement and reports that the US Chamber of Commerce has revised its policy on climate change and now – after many months of fighting “green” legislation – is itself demanding an additional tax on income from the production and processing of hydrocarbons. Millions of viewers stared dumbfounded at the screens. “Sooo,” a wave passes over the face of the host, who was brought a new printout. “The Chamber denies. It looks like a fake … ” Meanwhile, in the hall of the National Press Center in Washington, a uniform performance of the theater of the absurd is unfolding. “Green technologies in the field of hydrocarbons have not been tested, because such technologies simply do not exist,” a well-groomed gentleman in an expensive business suit says from the podium. Journalists from leading publications, TV and radio channels, who rushed to the press conference after receiving a sensational press release early in the morning about the new environmental course in the policy of the Chamber of Commerce, cannot believe their ears. “This event has nothing to do with the US Chamber of Commerce,” another well-groomed gentleman in an expensive suit appears in the hall. “I represent the chamber.” “Who are you? – And who are you? Show me your business card! “No, you show it!” – Kharms’s dialogue is composed by itself on the air, it will also get into news releases, but already in the evening, about a session of environmental activist magic with subsequent exposure. Two weeks later, the US Chamber of Commerce will announce that it will not prevent the increase in hydrocarbon taxes.

Later, this story will be included in the film “The Yes Men fix the world”, because the sleek gentleman who said in the National Press Center that green technologies and hydrocarbons are an oxymoron was none other than one of the founders of The Yes Men, Jacques Servin. The story continued: the Chamber of Commerce, of course, denied that it had changed its position under the influence of the pranksters, and, of course, tried to sue The Yes Men, but in the end the claim was dismissed. Not all of their fakes were exposed as quickly, but this defeat turned into a victory for Robin Hoods on all fronts. In addition, the action with the Chamber of Commerce turned out to be incredibly cinematic, from the first to the last second. As, however, and most of the media sabotage of “yes-people”, Jacques Servin and Igor Vamos, acting under the pseudonyms Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno in cinema and life. The first 15 years of their guerrilla activities are reflected in three homicidal films: The Yes Men (2003), The Yes Men Fix The World (2009) and The Yes Men Are Revolting (2014). But, judging by the fact that The Yes Men do not let up and as recently as January undertook to annoy Adidas by arranging an alternative fashion show at Berlin Fashion Week, which was dedicated to Adidas greenwashing, the trilogy may turn into a tetralogy.

First, you appear on BBC World and, on behalf of Dow Chemical, announce that you have realized your guilt and, 20 years after the Bhopal disaster, are ready to pay colossal compensation to the victims. Then all the world’s mass media talk about you as impostors – of course, because you brought down the shares of a chemical giant on the stock market, and it suddenly fell in price by $ 2 billion. Then they forget about you – and now you show off at an international banking conference as a representative of Dow with report on the “acceptable risk calculator”, which allows you to calculate the optimal number of human losses that can be brought to the altar of the commercial success of the company. A few years later, you find out that Dow Chemical has hired secret agents and they are closely watching your work. All life is lived as a performance – on camera, sometimes hidden. In movies, on the band’s website, and in lectures, when The Yes Men speak on their own artistic and activist front, the leitmotif is “do as we do, do better than us.” But an activist can never do better than an artist. Whether it’s a spoofed New York Post with a “We’re Crazy” editorial or the idiotic “Survival Balloons,” the inflatable personal protective suits that the world’s top polluters supposedly put out for their select customers in the event of global warming.

The story of The Yes Men begins in 1999 with such a successful forgery of the World Trade Organization website that for several years the forgers received invitations to various economic forums. And, of course, they could not fail to take the chance to carry social-racist nonsense on behalf of the WTO in front of the aces, ladies and jacks of the business world, enjoying their benevolent and sympathetic interest. For example, to talk in Salzburg about the successes of Hitler’s economic policy as a positive example for modern business (Servin’s father miraculously survived the Holocaust). And in New York, about how to solve the problem of hunger with the help of zero-waste production, since the third world can be fed with products obtained from the feces of the first world. They found their appreciative listener smiling and nodding gleefully: yes, a man willing to do anything for profit, even crimes against humanity, if they could be called something else, say, “acceptable risks,” that is the hero. our time.

Fake websites of global corporations, fake press releases and press conferences, fake speakers at international conventions, fake election and public relations campaigns, fake editions of reputable newspapers and tabloids – The Yes Men’s work is a trompe l’oeil, a satirical trick, a fake picture global peace, which looks more convincing than the real one. Watching their films, it is impossible not to be amazed at the instantaneous transformation of Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno from freaky hackers with their noses in monitors to self-confident businessmen sparkling with white-toothed smiles. However, not only artistry and wit turns The Yes Men from “just activists” into activist artists. In wide smiles and strong handshakes, in streamlined press releases and on-duty jokes of speakers, in the rhythm of advertising texts and design that sells itself, one suddenly recognizes the great style of the era of globalism, the high transnational corporate style that can be so masterfully parodied or hacked so cool only when you feel his spirit, like Rubens, is the spirit of the baroque. However, you are not going to become the court rubens of this transnational corporate baroque, like Jeff Koons or another white-toothed smile in an expensive business suit. Keep an ironic distance. In the end, big, and big style as well, is seen from a distance.

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