Getting Down To Brass Tacks:
A Press The Button Primer




In the newly revitalized Reading Room of the British Museum, there are a lot of books.  Outside, a light fall drizzle pattered on the roof of a BMW X5, where, in the back seat of this Sports Activity Vehicle as it trolls through the turbid shoals of London traffic, notable interviewer Dr. E and Paul Ryan of the Button Press are talking.  You can see them intermittently through the swish of the rear wiper.  Apply the laser to the glass to hear what they are saying:
	"First of all, thanks for allowing me to pose some questions to you. "
	"Hey, no problem at all,"  Paul said, taking the Red Bull can out of the cup holder.
	 "Also," Dr. E said, "thanks for the follow up essay.  I admire your style of writing."  He tapped pertinent recording commands into his laptop.  "Was it also a Snuggles essay?"
	"Thank you," Paul said, rolling the narrow can between his palms before replacing it to the cupholder.  "Actually, that one was originally more of a PR backgrounder I had given to a magazine writer whose interview appointment I couldn't make.  It ultimately got turned into a handout we, that is, the band I was once in," he grinned conspiratorially, "The Button, give away at concerts."
	"I've only really a few simple questions to begin with," Dr. E began.  The X5 braked suddenly for a courier on a Yamaha that leapt in front of them.  "Do you have a choice of alias I can use if I need to quote you later on?"  
	"Paul Ryan is the name I use the most," Paul said.  "Enough people recognize me that way to use it."
	"OK," Dr. E said, organizing his thoughts for a second.  "You mentioned earlier that you've been "...attempting to reconcile the culture-jammer's ethic with Foucault and the New Historic."  What would you consider to be the culture-jammer's ethic?"
	"Well, in a word. . . terrorism," Paul said.  Dr. E's eyebrows raised a tich.
	"The classical definition of terrorism, I mean," Paul said quickly.  "Not to have a misunderstanding, I'm talking about an illegal act used to propagate a political or  social message, not deliberate retaliatory attacks that we see currently."
	"OK," Dr. E said slowly, "so there is a difference?"
	"Of course.  To give an example that fits my definition, anyway," Paul continued,  "in 1978 terrorists somewhere in the Middle East, took a DC-8 full of people hostage, that was still at the airport.  They negotiated with authorities until they got what they wanted.  The hostages were released, and the news organizations that were filming the incident were about to pack up and leave when this independent film crew told everyone to wait a few minutes first.  The news crews did, still filming the plane when it exploded spectacularly.  No one was killed, and the news crews now had something interesting looking for their news programs worldwide."  Paul sipped the Red Bull.  "Now, of course, 
it was later learned, that the independent film crew was working for the terrorists, to make sure that their message was delivered to the media.  Did the terrorists need to blow up the plane?  Possibly not, but it was an indelible message that these people were serious, and not to be trifled with.  Ultimately, this operation hinged on news coverage.  On dissemination.  Culture-jamming is like that.  It's media driven, message oriented, but it's useless unless disseminated."  The drizzle seemed to slow, the driver turned the wipers off.  "Anybody can have an opinion," Paul said, "and lots of people can parody, 
edit, refine, mock or even Dada-ize the information torrent that bombards us daily, but the culture jammer keeps that process from becoming one-way, a dead end.  The Culture Jammer re-disseminates that which is already disseminated, now in a new-and-improved, pro-message form."
 	Dr. E thought for a moment.  "What is your understanding of the term culture-jamming?"
	"This is where I have to start inventing words."  Paul grimaced, seeming to look for the answers in the gridlock that surrounded them.  "First of all, people understand the word "media", since television is a medium, and is also reasonably easy to understand in terms of the greater culture.  It has hard information, in this case, news, and entertainment, and "high culture" , meaning, basically, art, but it has limits.  That which is the medium of television is the result of specific anthropologic circumstances within human history, and, it is discreet, the sum cultural total of television is less than the sum total of culture as a whole.  Second, television is also circular:  the 
television medium knows only itself, so to speak, and cannot reach beyond itself because of it.  Critic Fred Jameson's term "Absent Cause" applies here in the sense that the Absent Cause of TV is, largely, the "story" of the sponsor.  Now in terms of public television, it would be the "story" of government funding and corporate donations.  Those who are "oppressed", or are "unenlightened" by the TV medium are so because they are part of the "sponsor story"."  Paul sipped from the narrow can again, furrowing his brow.  "For example, When you see an auto race on TV, the Number 8 car, say,  is covered with Budweiser logos.  But Budweiser isn't part of the rising action of the race, nor is it meant to be seen by the other characters, and by that I mean "characters"  in terms of theater, of the drama that is unfolding on the screen.  Budweiser isn't a plot element, a theme, a character, or any other cultural element to the "culture" that is the TV medium.  It is "invisible" to everybody except the viewer.  That is the "absent cause" of television since sponsorship doesn't exist for everyone and everything that takes place within the television medium.
	"Now, thirdly, thinking of the TV medium as a culture, let us reverse the argument and say that culture, is a medium, like TV.  From a physiological standpoint, what are you doing, right now?"
	"Sitting in a car in London?"  Dr. E asked.
	"Well, yes," Paul said.  "You see me, the passenger's seat in front of you, Harrods's out the window there, you hear what I am saying, you smell the leather and feel the laptop in your lap, and so on.  You are converting the inputs of your sensorium into thoughts.  These inputs are sight, sound, touch, smell, taste, mixed with your memories of other sights, sounds, smells, touches, and tastes.  If all of those sensorium inputs were coming from one box, it would be like a television, just with Dolby Taste 7.1, smellovision and feelyvison, added on.  That box, is culture, but more than just culture, since "culture", as we know it, is just part of that whole.  This box, then, is what I call the Pancultural Medium.  An analog to the Pancultural Medium would be Sassure's Langue, but the PM is also meant to cover non-word concepts and ideas, such as, were it to say:  "Alfa Romeo" to you, it may very well conjure up images within you that aren't necessarily word-oriented images.  The Langue, on the other hand, is more word-and-meaning oriented.
	"And moving on to fourthly,"  Paul grinned.  "Now that we've gotten this far, using the Pancultural Medium as the basis for a line of thinking about "culture in general", when? you take a bit of that PM, like the Parole is to the Langue, and do something with it, alter it, altered to make that bit of the PM mean something else, other than what you started with, you are doing two things:  One, you create a new message, sort of.  Not necessarily original, but a message of your own choosing.  In the U.S., the TV network ABC had for many years a news anchor named Peter Jennings.  He was well respected, having come up the ranks of ABC's news agency and held the top spot, so to speak, at ABC News, anchoring the national news program for them.  One day, he happened to say the letter "F" quite distinctly during a broadcast, and then subsequently reported on The U.N. and Microsoft.  Some careful editing created a tape making Peter Jennings, respected newscaster say "F. U., Microsoft".  Once disseminated, this voiced an opinion of my own choosing, and more importantly, it was an opinion that was stated in a way that garnered more attention than had I said it myself, since I am not a nationally-regarded newscaster, and Two, it is pretty obvious that Peter Jennings would never say such a thing on the news.   This is how you show that it is your message, since you co-opted Peter Jennings' greater ability to reach Americans, to, in this case, speak on your behalf, like an unintentional endorsement.  Reaching back to the absent cause, you then become the absent cause of Peter Jennings' new statement.   Now that your message has power, has cultural momentum behind it due to American culture putting great faith in what Peter Jennings says, but, it's a two sided faith:  On one side, what he says is 
believed, because he is "trusted", but on the other side, if he were to say something like "F.U., Microsoft," it will generate skepticism on his having said it, because of that same "trust".  This is how the Pancultural Medium appears before us:  suddenly, this ubiquitous television-like medium, this Pancultural Medium, even though it is so common and so obvious that it is invisible, is made visible for an instant.  This edited statement, that doctored photograph, the other parodied television commercial, serves two ends:  to make a message, often social, often critical, and to reveal the existence of the Pancultural Medium, to prove that there is a mechanism behind so-called reality, or better described as "cultural reality", demonstrating that the PM is both in a constant state of being created for a distinct end, directed, and that end can be altered through the alteration of parts of the medium itself."
	There was a pause in the back of the BMW.  The drizzle started to pick up again.  
	"Yes, yes, I know,"  Paul said with a laugh, "in addition to the cake I also provide the recipe and the oven."
	Dr. E smiled. "I see," he said.  "Are you involved in any kinds of culture-jamming activities, or have you been in the past?"
	"Yes.  I have, and am."
	"If so could you give some examples?"
	"Currently, after woking with the Button for a number of years, I am now  working within the larger community of the member of the Living Room Salon, attending Recycled Rainbow festivals, I create collage-style music, write, working in the visual arts, and genrally screw around artistically in the greater realm of cyberspace.  The work could best be described as "Dadaistic", and Pauculturally-oriented, and often fits my definition of culture-jamming.  
	"As we like to put it," Paul said, still holding the now empty can of Red Bull, "if the Pancultural Medium is a vast tile floor, made up of uncountable numbers of little gray tiles stretching in all directions, can you easily pick out any one tile, or pattern of tiles?  Probably not.  However, what if one of the tiles is loose, and lies crookedly on the floor?  It becomes much easier to spot.  If a few words from a car commercial are stitched together with a recorded lecture about comparative religion so as to tell the listener an idea about the buying and selling of religions, we have kicked up a few of those tiles and rearranged them in a way that everyone can now see them, so we are, to 
switch metaphors, generating a mirror, to reflect the properties that made the mirror possible in the first place."
	"And by 'we', you mean?"
	"The artists who I work with.  Our talents and techniques vary widely," Paul said, making another grab for the Red Bull, "there are witers, painters, culture hooligans, metalworkers, sculptors, musicians, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera,  all more or less driving each other along in the same direction.  Details about the all of this stuff can be found at www.Pressthebutton.com, vibiant.com, or recycledrainbow.com.  The radio program Press The Button has 
been on the air since 1997.  I joined up in 1998 part time, and full time in 1999, working with Every Man and Glacial 23.  Prior to this, I worked with Every Man at another college station doing other, similar radio shows. 
	"Do you feel that the activities of culture-jammers are effective and efficient depending on their individual goals?"  Dr. E asked.  He added parenthetically,  "And if so, How?  Why?"
	The BMW bumped to a stop behind a black cab.  Paul thought for a second.  "Culture-jamming is effective,"  he began, frowning a little in thought,  "but, it is not efficient, at least, not under the current rules of the media game."  Paul paused for a moment, briefly considering the dense traffic on the other side of the glass. "The previous statement is an equation, of sorts.  For if culture-jamming were to become less effective, it would become more efficient.  
"As an example of the first statement:  That edit of Peter Jennings I made earlier, "F.U., Microsoft."   It is, within itself, and effective, general critique of Microsoft, a company that many people have enmity with anyway, so having a well-known. . . ." Paul trailed off.  "Well, maybe not well-known to you, I'll get to that in a moment, but regardless a respected personage confirm that enmity for you makes it all the more effective.  Now, This Jennings statement is effective, since the first person I played it for was kissing a girl at a party and broke out laughing when he heard it.  Kind of hard on the girl, I suppose, but the experiment itself was a success.  Now, were I to go to 
every party in the U.S. and play that same Jennings bit, the information would be disseminated, and the culture would be jammed, but I'd be doing nothing else for the next several years.  I can put the fragment on the radio, or public access television, or even the internet, but without a promotion/advertising campaign of some kind the dissemination is little wider than at a party.  I could make a CD, and distribute it, except that I'm not a multimillionaire and would need a record company to assist me, which they would not do until I had copyrights to the piece first."  Paul snickered for a second.  "I might be able to get the rights from Disney, which owns ABC, but the chances are slim, since I would be making one of their premiere intellectual properties, who, of course, is known for his objectivity, look less than objective, and the legal fees that the process would involve would also probably also require me to be a millionaire.  For that kind of effectiveness, the efficiency is rather low.
"Now, another look at that equation.  Another respected ABC newsperson, Ted Coppell, host of "Nightline", and a seemingly sharp student of culture, saw the collage-element of  hip-hop.  When I first heard of that statement,  I gave it some thought, and ultimately had to agree, though it had never occurred to me before, even though I have listened to hip-hop for years.  It is, in a mild way, culture-jamming:  bits and pieces of old songs, recycled and re-ordered into new songs.  They re-make old music to fit new music tastes and demonstrate the existence of the mechanism behind it, fitting my technical definition.  The creation of hip-hop is easy, relatively speaking, a minimum amount of research needs to be done beforehand to find the sources you want to use, as is the 
dissemination, since it is one record company asking for copyrights from another record company, which, compared to my Peter Jennings conundrum, is comparatively easy.  Hip-hop is popular to listen to, since it is both common and an accessible format:  You don't have to listen carefully if you don't want to, just dance to it.  The efficiency is therefore high, but the effectiveness is ultimately low, because of that efficiency.  Western-style, as opposed to Eastern-style, music is common enough to cross many cultural boundaries; it sounds as good to you out here in Europe as it does to me in the U.S.  Peter Jennings, even if he is known to you in Europe, doesn't carry the same load of 
connotations as he does in the states since we U.S.'ers have much more contact with him, so to speak.  Ultimately, this is the same sort of effective/efficient equation that applies to fashion; like the wild clothes on the Milan runway are exciting but don't sell, the mild clothes on the racks are boring but sell... or with car sales; the concept car vs. production model,  dating supermodels, and a number of other things that escape memory at the moment."
	"Supermodels?"  asked Dr. E.
	"Well, yes, in a way."
	"OK," he said, pressing a few more buttons on the laptop, "Do you find 'jammed' texts, or culture-jamming in general to be humorous?"
	"Yes, they certainly can have humorous qualities, on a couple of different levels."
	"Could you give an examples?"  asked Dr. E.
	"Primarily," Paul began, "the humor of culture-jamming is the "Alien Effect" such as Bertold Brecht used to use in  is plays, or perhaps still uses in his plays.  He's still alive, isn't he?"
	"I think so," Dr. E said.
	"OK.  Culture, in general, the Pancultural Medium, in particular, is transparent.  Hacking apart bits of it, and reassembling those bits into something different generate the same effect as a play where, say HUSBAND comes home from work to his WIFE, where WIFE is sitting in a chair, knitting, but there is so much yarn that she is literally tied down, barely able to move, and when the HUSBAND enters, we see that he has a large axe stuck in the top of his head, and he is bleeding profusely.
	"WIFE:  Husband, you are home.
	"HUSBAND:  Yes, it has been a long day.
	"What we see in these quiet lives of desperation the personification, the "reality-ization" of what  would ordinarily be culturally transparent.  The wife is tied to the home, in this case, literally, and the husband apparently has a bad job, as evidenced by the axe.  You see these social institutions for what they are, and they are so far beyond the day to day doldrums of normal reality, they are funny, here, in a slapstick sort of way, but still funny.  "F.U., Microsoft.", is funny as well.  Many people have said it before, when Windows 95 is misbehaving, most likely, and when an ordinarily respected and judicious person agrees with our fuming, then that too, because of the breaking out of 
the mold that is the regular, ordinary Peter Jennings.  It is funny, because he appears to be "losing it", not behaving in the way that makes his behaviors transparent.  The humor of this breakaway from the "normal" is inevitable, like the fallout from a nuclear weapon, and far better for you.  
	"The other level of humor to culture jamming is deeper.  Because of the relative rarity of culture jamming, using information against other information, I find a certain satisfaction in the understanding of the culture jamming process.  Like figuring out a magic trick, hearing a bit of collage or seeing a reorganized text, and knowing where the source material came from, and how it was put together, brings out in me a gleeful satisfaction, that I think other culture jammers share.  This is a knowledge game, a knowledge war, even, and knowing how the individual weapons work brings out a satisfaction that is not unlike humor."
	"Do you think humor might be effective as a tool for activists or culture-jammers?"
	"Absolutely.  It is the one sure way to reach an audience."
	"Really,"  Dr. E said, "in what ways and why?"
	Paul finally put the empty Red Bull can into the cupholder.  "To go back 
to Fred Jameson for a moment, the Absent Causes within the Pancultural Medium hide the fallacies, shortcomings and other "wrongs" that are endemic to all culture, and the PM.  Culture Jamming can address some of those Absent Causes, and any number of other social ills, like, the Negativland song "Guns" comes to mind, for example, but all of this can only be effective if the dissemination is done and the audience is reached.  This is where we get into the realm of promotion:  How do you make your version of culture seem better than everybody else's?  Make it funny.  That's one way.  Slapping someone in the face with the cold reality of their cultural situation will get a reaction, but not a reaction that will provide the necessary change in the future to make socio-cultural progress.  The French Revolution was a cold slap of reality, and resulted in massive political instability for nearly 100 years afterward.  The Computer Revolution was much less cold.  Computers killed off the job position "clerk" as quickly as the guillotine killed royals, but careful marketing of the home uses, and the "playful" nature of the computer: use it in your home , play games with it, and so on, and careful cultural engineering to allow acceptance made for relatively few industrio-social waves, strikes, boycotts and the like, compared to the socio-political waves generated by the French Revolution: parliamentary upheavals, repeated rapid elections, massive political intrigue, and so on.
	"If you can warm the audience up to the idea of change by making them NOT THINK first, just make them laugh, they'll think about it later, since they already accepted the humor they will think less harshly about the rhetoric contained within.  That's how satire works, and why the U.S. Government used Bugs Bunny to sell War Bonds during WW2.  To change culture, you have to use culture's rules.  Fight fire with fire, you'll get more flies with honey than vinegar, and so on."
	The X5 bumped to another halt.  "Those are a few questions for the moment," Dr. E said, shaking hands with Paul.   "I will probably have follow up questions in the future."
	"No problem,"  Paul smiled.  "This gives me a chance? to get all my ideas out there in public discourse and properly gelled."