animated singing santa hack

now this is the funniest thing i’ve seen in ages.

you know that ubiquitous 5-foot dancing talking santa they sell at wal-mart? well, this artist/hacker decided to reprogram it to, well…

let’s just say that santa has now been bent to this very creative guy’s will. at the artist’s request, i haven’t linked directly to the videos of santa in action, but the links are on the site and you have to watch them. i’m not going to spoil the fun, but they have to be seen to be believed.

the page itself is kinda geeky and technical, as he describes how to reprogram santa’s computer chips and whatnot. but it’s worth a scanning read anyway–his story of trying to get his piece entered in a local art show is funny as all hell.

i’m guessing wal-mart is going to send the lawyers after him pretty soon, so you might want to see this site asap before it disappears. as we speak, they are probably asking mattel if they can borrow all those lawyers that go after anyone using barbie in non-mattel-approved ways. and don’t even mention disney.

it’s too bad, but corporations tend to go after art that comments on the commerciality of art and its relationship to commerce. there’s a great site, illegal-art.org, which discusses this issue in depth.

they have links to a lot of art that has been banned, ostensibly for copyright infringement problems. personally, i think that’s a crock of crap–did campbell’s soup sue warhol? i’m betting that if andy had painted tomato soup cans now, the lawyers would immediately have been at his doorstep.

the illegal art site is definitely worth your time just like the dancing santa site is, if not more so. lots of banned disney art, videos including the infamous “superstar: the karen carpenter story” by todd haynes. it uses barbie dolls to tell the story of the anorexic ms. carpenter.

if that ain’t art, and therefore protected, i don’t know what is. but it’s banned.

i think the hacked dancing santa is art too. just my opinion.