Yes Men, Cindy Sheehan, Nikky Lee

I really dig the Yes Men's work. It's a really funny and smart way to get people to start thinking. I like the fact that they don't just go for the obvious route of making obvious, blatant statements like "WTO is bad'. They wrap their message in the authority of the WTO and present it as an official package. This is the ultimate subversion. My only possible beef with their approach is that they do not give solutions to the problems they present. After people start asking questions, what's next? Then again, there are no easy solutions to these problems. I think it would have been great if the Yes Men had included some practical information into their performances.

Nikki Lee's work also involves impersonation. I think the process of her work, adopting clothes and mannerisms of a culture, raises alot of interesting questions about identity. Can you become someone else, just by acting like someone else? Is identity merely a series of performances? The authenticity conveyed in her photographs is what gets me. Along with the well-researched exterior, Nikky seems to have adopted the physical attitude of her target group. The way she carries herself is different according to the group. It really sucks to think that "I" is that mutable. How do you define someone if personality is just a compilation of transient traits?

Cindy Sherman's work is along the same lines as Nikki's. Sherman photographs herself in various makeup and clothing. Her work also brings up the same questions about acting. Is a human just a mixture of props, clothes, and hair? Her mimicry of movies also calls into the question the nature of reality. Her photographs have the quality of a constructed movie-reality, yet is reflects the real world. What's real, the object or the perception of the object?