MEDIA ROOTS- As the world of art becomes increasingly homogenized, it is growing harder to come across original art that has societal and political significance. With the exception of Banksy and a few others, rarely do you see a prominent artist putting themselves out there to make a bold statement or provoke controversial thought. Like every other commodity in this corporatist system, popular modern art has become an over-produced, unoriginal, profit driven industry.

In times of perpetual wars and endless threats, dissenting propaganda artists have always been a crucial element of communication, organization and reflection. For our generation- there is Nathan Janes (AKA Red Baron), a propaganda artist and political activist who refuses to sell out to the system.

Janes is the mind behind PUPAGANDA, a pop art website countering the societal saturation of ‘meaningless advertising art’ by providing more inspiring, thought provoking work.  According to Janes, “It’s time people quit living a life of constant entertainment and start engaging in critical thought while questioning the barrage of commercial images and propaganda that they are faced with each day.”

His motivation is to open minds by depicting the machinery the global elite use to advance their own agenda.  And he does it with a man’s best friend – Janes uses the comforting imagery of dogs because they serve as an artistic tool for individuals to explore contentious topics.

Janes’s art has been featured in multiple prominent publications and he has been commissioned to do paintings by celebrities like Caprice Bourret and Pete Wentz of the band Fall Out Boy. Media Roots recently sat down with Nathan Janes for an exclusive interview about his artistic and political endeavors.

***

MR: What was your political awakening? Why did you start making political art?

NJ: My political awakening happened about three years ago. My journey began when my musician friend Photon Man gave me a copy of Terrorstorm by Alex Jones. It wasn’t long before I transformed my art from “Pop ARF” to “PUPAGANDA.” My previous “Pop ARF” artwork focused on the heartwarming appeal of dogs; I promoted the message of the prevention of cruelty towards animals but many of my paintings were just aesthetically pleasing without any particular message. While I still have compassion for dogs, my focus today is to awaken the general public to the ways in which we have been trained to follow our masters much like dogs. 

Since I have begun to create more powerful and thought provoking paintings, interest from art publications and other media that once promoted my work has ceased. Today’s artists found in the mainstream media and major galleries, create work lacking careful analysis of society. Artists that make strong statements about the Establishment and the ways in which we are being controlled and managed may never be promoted widely because we are a threat to the status quo.

MR: Why do you paint dogs and how does that fit into the messages you relay?

NJ: Dogs are the perfect subject to communicate my message because people still have empathy and compassion for dogs. We have been exposed to dehumanization through a constant flow of images on television, in movies, and in print depicting so much violence against our own kind that people no longer have compassion for one another. When something tragic happens to another human being, we are unable to react but if a dog is abused in anyway there is a sudden swell of compassion. There are also many parallels between the ways that dogs are trained and how we are conditioned by culture, which make for powerful paintings.

MR: What mediums do you usually work with?

NJ: I work in acrylics and usually paint on stretched canvas.

MR: Did you have any art school training or does painting come naturally for you?

NJ: I am a graduate of the Columbus College of Art and Design in Columbus, Ohio. My work today is a representation of my hard work and incredibly intensive practice.  I began training to be an artist as a freshman in High School. I am not talented or gifted; I have just applied myself and developed my skills and technique over many years.

MR: You just launched an international campaign that sparked attention worldwide, including a plug from Adbusters. What is Unplug the Signal, and why should people get involved?

NJ: Unplug the Signal is a campaign to turn off televisions.  I designed the campaign to create awareness of the gross manipulation of reality that is broadcast by the six major corporations controlling the content of television. With the average American adult watching more than 4 hours of television each day, the television plays a major role in continually creating the perceived reality in which we live.  The television has been used as a weapon of mass deception for the last half a century; it manages society and culture through such techniques as perception management, behavior placement, predictive programming and crisis creation.

People should get involved with this campaign because the television remains our greatest threat to individual sovereignty and the largest obstacle to becoming a truly informed individual. In order for individuals to see the real locus of control and look beyond such things as the false left/right paradigm, they will first need to be able to get beyond the paradigm conditioned by the television. In order for people to wake up, this information needs to be shared between families, friends, and neighbors. The campaign has just begun and already the message is spreading. I am very happy with the feedback it has been receiving.

MR: What are your three favorite pieces and what do they represent?

NJ: My three favorite pieces would be those that focus on the engineering and control of society through television:

Total Indoctrination, Acrylic on Canvas, 48” x 48”, 2009

This painting represents how totally absorbed someone who regularly watches television can become, where they see everything within their lives relating somehow to television. It depicts a life where anything outside TV is rejected and all thoughts and discussions are just recycled conversations from TV and slogans from those sold to us as authorities and experts.

TV Mind Control, Acrylic on Canvas, 36” x 48”, 2009

This piece depicts the hypnotic affect of television as those who watch become a subject of mind-control. Too often the brain is switched to standby and all information is collected and accepted as truth without any questioning.  When viewing television, we do not consciously rationalize the information resonating within our unconscious depths; the hypnotic affect makes us highly suggestible.

Unplug the Signal, Acrylic and Masonite, 20″ x 16″, 2010

“Unplug the Signal” represents the constant flow of information that is transmitted by the television 24 hours a day. It is this signal which places the viewers all on the same page and makes them highly predictable. Plato’s Cave serves as an allegory for this phenomenon. In Plato’s cave, people view the shadows on the wall and interpret these shadows as reality. When one of them finds a way out of the cave and returns to tell the others what is outside, he and his message are rejected. When individuals are so thoroughly engrossed by the message of television, they will reject any information outside of the paradigm it presents while attacking and ridiculing the messenger.

MR: What is in store for Nathan Janes?

NJ: I am currently working on a painting of the President’s dog. This painting is a critical assessment I created in response to the threats to our liberties as sovereign citizens of this Republic. As for what’s in store, I will be working on a painting on Tiananmen Square, Chemtrails, implantable microchips and other projects that will spread the message of the Unplug the Signal Campaign including poetry, song writing, and the development of an literary allegory.

****

Find out more about Nathan “Red Baron” Janes at PUPAGANDA, or follow his work on Facebook and YouTube. Get involved in his Unplug the Signal campaign at UnplugtheSignal.com

Abby

Obama, Anatomy of a World Leader
by Alex Grey

“After hearing Barack Obama’s speech in Berlin, and noting the degree of excitement and hope that he generated throughout many countries besides the US, I started to see him as one of the first true “world leaders.” This may be partly because of his extraordinary childhood and political life that has bridged many cultures. Obama’s restraint and intelligence, exhibited as foes were bating him throughout the campaign, his heartful clarity coming through in his talks are all qualities of a highly evolved person. We need to consider our planetary citizenship, because solving the world’s ecological and economic problems, and creating a culture of peace and reconciliation will require the co-operation of all nations. Perhaps you can use this symbol of Barack Obama to send him a prayer of support, to send all the loving hopeful healing and creative energy that we can focus on him so that he can perform the task of leadership in the most effective and powerful way for the greatest good, for the greatest number.”

MEDIA ROOTS – The above statement is Alex Grey’s interpretation of his Obama painting. How can an artist like Alex Grey, one who has supposedly superseded this physical realm, idolize Obama as some sort of spiritual leader? Most of Alex’s art reflects the true essence of our beings by displaying consciousness as a universal energy that we and all living things on this planet share, breaking down the physical reality of our perception of self and body. But the sitting president’s existence in the current political arena serves to bolster a physical illusion that divides the people and cloaks the real power that we humans have within.

Alex calls Obama a “highly evolved person.” Would a highly evolved person be engaging in covert bombing campaigns in multiple countries, killing innocent civilians on a daily basis? Would a highly evolved person be expanding the war machine at the same rate if not more as the Bush administration while spending all of the taxpayer’s money on the military industrial complex as people continue to lose their homes and businesses? Would a highly evolved person reject fundamental rights of due process for human beings and support the continuation and expansion of draconian measures that strip away our civil liberties? Would they award BP with more government contracts after they are responsible for the worst environmental crisis in our nation’s history?

When I think of highly evolved characteristics, I think of Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr., and countless others who have declared that violence, destruction and death aren’t necessary means to any end goal. It is more than disappointing that Alex got sucked into the Obama hype and chose to reflect our president as a spiritual symbol instead of a figurehead to an inherently corrupt and violent machine that has continuously propagandized and manipulated the masses of this country while perpetrating aggression all over the world. Other pieces of Alex’s art display the energetic spirit of consciousness and contain an ultimate truth – a truth that is much more profound than any one puppet. Let’s hope he taps back into that.

Abby

MEDIA ROOTS- It appears the sea has become an appropriate site for modern art, as Mexican artist Jason De Caires has inserted his sculptures into the ocean. The pieces are created on land, transported by boat and submerged into shallow water that can be viewed by snorkeling. Some of the larger figures are actually bolted to the floor of the ocean.

As an activist, I don’t know how I feel about this endeavor. The ocean floor is the last environmental bastion of non-human interference. I think the most beautiful thing about snorkeling or scuba diving is being immersed in a completely unadulterated environment.

On the other hand, I do appreciate the fact that the sculptural pieces are made of material that doesn’t destroy the ocean habitat in any way. The pieces are strengthened by the coral, algae, and marine life that grow on them. Under most circumstances, nature will destroy anything manmade over time, which is encouraging to think that this art will eventually be overtaken by coral and algae and serve as a foundation for new life.

As an artist, it irks me that this guy is gaining such notoriety for this. His sculptures are very generic and uninteresting. A bowl of fruit on a table? A guy sitting at a desk? Bolted to the bottom of the ocean floor?  The one that is the most unsettling to me is the guy at a desk. Do we really need this portrayal of present day working humans in an atmosphere that is totally unrelated to our modern world?

Anyone who tries to escape the human world will be forced to view his art. Instead of choosing to view his exhibit in a gallery of sorts, you are forced to be faced with it if you happen to be underwater in this part of the world. The only thing I know is that it would be the last thing I want to see underwater… hopefully this type of aquatic foray doesn’t spread to the rest of the art world.

Abby