On Saturday, August 22nd, internationally famous British street artist and social rebel Banksy declared his latest project Dismaland open to the public.
I've noticed that many commentators rushed to label the large-scale art installation dystopian, but I tend to disagree. Dystopia is an imaginary place where everything is scary and bad. But Banksy's mini "park" in Weston-super-Mare (UK) is an artistic re-imagining of a fairy-tale theme park in the harsh light of our miserable reality. From what I've seen, instead of saying, "Imagine if everything was horrible," the site screams, "Take off your pink glasses and see the horrors around you. Look in the mirror and see who you are."
While Dismaland is basically a collective art show (50 artists in total) and Banksy himself contributed only 10 pieces of his own into the mix, it is first and foremost his aesthetic concept, his political declaration, his social commentary. And even if you never bothered yourself with an interpretive analysis of art and know very little about this artist and his work, as long as you know something you most likely know that
- Banksy is a provocateur. As the best of the street artists before him, he seeks to stir and cause awareness.
- Banksy is a social critic who is focused on exposing the flaws of contemporary society's structure and its perversity.
- Banksy is a student of anthropology who probes human reactions to various stimuli he creates with his projects, from early anti-establishment graffiti to Exit through the Gift Shop and Gaza Strip Clip. Some sharp and extraordinarily observant people have suggested, for example, that Mr. Brainwash was Banksy's creation from start to finish - a test to see how far hype can lead the artsy herd.
Knowing this makes it hard to resist a thought that, regardless of the artistic merits and social significance of the individual pieces inside, a stationary installation with a six-week limited run and a daily allotment of only 2000 tickets priced at a laughable £3 is Banksy's latest experiment in human behavior. His name itself is a perfect sensationalistic stimulus required to initiate the chain reaction ripe with observational material. He already knows what an attraction he is - his 2009 Banksy vs. Bristol Museum show was attended by 300,000 people in 12 weeks.
It started immediately. As soon as Dismaland's site came to life the day before yesterday, 6 million people attacked it trying to pre-book the admission tickets; crushing the site. We cannot know what proportion of these people were scalpers, but a few tickets (most likely fake) are being offered on eBay for $700. (It's worth noting that the "park" would have to stay open for over 8 years to accommodate 6 million people).
Now that the online ticketing is disabled (supposedly temporarily - until Tuesday), people are queuing in person and there are definite reports of ticket hopefuls camping out around the site. Of course, it is only the second day of the show, but it is easy to imagine that the number of campers will only increase.
For those of us who stayed for hours and sometimes days in front of museums just to get in, or concert venues to win a place by the stage, it is easy to envision further developments: lists organized by orderly art-lovers, marks on hands, attempts to join a "party of friends" upfront, offers to buy someone's place for an exorbitant amount of money, yelling matches, and fist fights.
Things like that happen around events that only last for a few hours. This one will be open for six weeks. So, those with the especially strong propensity for an escalation of commitment may be there for days upon days with limited access to food and hygiene - dirty, unfed, angry, and semi-violent "art lovers."
Remember? Dismaland is an absurd version of a Disney park and the most dismal part of a Disney experience is the lines. Recreating that in an extreme way is an art piece of its own right. Every single person trying to get in becomes a part of Banksy's art project and even more so when they finally get inside and start wandering among the attractions.
So, ask yourself: Do you want to be a part of Banksy's social experiment? It's up to you to decide whether it's more important to attend and be a subject in it, to watch from the sidelines through media, or to purposely not engage. Banksy's Cinderella's Castle centerpiece seems to be asking the question - what will it take for people to look away?
Acknowledgement: Special thanks to Y.A. Crow for invaluable advice and inspiring editing