In an article about the top ten Art-Hacks in the past 100 years, I was really impressed by the Yes Men's satirical video attacking Dow Chemical for Bhopal. This is a work of art that resulted in a $12 million dollar loss! I've never heard of an artwork as effective... watch the Yes Men's trailer here. Here is what was said:
Dow Chemical “Help” Announcement by The Yes Men (2004)
The Bhopal disaster might be one of history’s worst industrial catastrophes, caused by a leak of methyl isocyanate on December 3, 1984 at an Indian pesticide plant owned by Dow Chemical—death estimates range between 3,700-11,000 with over 120,000 permanently injured. For the incident’s twentieth anniversary, culture jamming activists The Yes Men created a fake Dow Chemical website boasting that “[a]s a publicly owned corporation, Dow is unable, due to share-price concerns, to accept any responsibility for the Bhopal catastrophe." This led to widespread press backlash, culminating in Dow Chemical spokesman Jude Finisterra announcing on BBC World that Dow planned to liquidate its India assets for a $12 billion campaign to provide medical care and victim compensation. Dow Chemical scrambled to discredit the report, but not before its stock declined in value by $2 billion.
more here at the creators project.
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