The Yes Men Fix The World, directed by Andy Bichlbaum, Mike Bonnanno & Kurt Engfehr, is out on DVD in April. To celebrate the occasion we had a quick telephone chat with Andy Bichlbaum (also known as Ray Thomas and professor at Parsons Design in New York) and one half of the infamous Yes Men.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Yes Men, they are two of the world’s most famous tricksters and performance artists – Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno (a.k.a. Jacques Servin and Igor Vamos) who spend their spare time making fun of corporations and drawing attention to injustices around the planet.
The two men, armed with cheap suits, wild imaginations, seemingly vast resources and balls the sizes of bowling balls, have posed as the top executives of Dow Chemical, Exxon, Halliburton and the American Department of Housing and Urban Development.
They have ‘white’ lied their way into business conferences and boardrooms in a series of increasingly outrageous pranks.
During our all too brief chat with Andy Bichlbaum, he told us a bit about the Yes Men Fix The World film and about their cool new Yes Lab project where they will work to spread their activist skills to the hungry masses.
Do you use aliases for your work?
Well according to Wikipedia I am using an alias, but I don’t trust Wikipedia. Andy has no statement on the matter.
How many people help out with the actions?
When needed we get together with more people, it expands and contracts depending on the project. There are about four of us who form the core group.
Who funds the Yes Men?
Well, we do. They are usually not that expensive. Making the film was expensive and we didn’t get much help in doing that except for the Channel Four BRITDOC Foundation and a couple of small investors. It is hard to get movie funding, but doing the actions themselves is usually pretty cheap. We have jobs, but the main cost of the work is for the travel.
How have you avoided getting arrested and/or lawsuits?
Well, I don’t know. I think companies prefer not to mess with us, they know it will just bring more attention. Also it is not clear whether what we are doing is illegal or not. I think they just know we are right. We are also all doing illegal things everyday, we all jaywalk, smoke pot or whatever it is we do. I think when you are right about what you do you have the benefit of public opinion on your side.
Did the film detract from your ability to impersonate other people?
Yeah, that is why we are launching what we call the Yes Lab, basically it is a workshop system where we are going to be working with activist groups to spread our techniques and brainstorm with people so they can do projects and we don’t have to do them anymore.
Are you tired of the actions or simply moving in a different direction?
Just moving in a different direction. Trying to spread the wealth you could call it. What we are focusing on, and really hoping for, is that other people will take up the slack, which is why we are doing the whole Yes Lab project. For example, if you want to take on a company because they are the right targets, then let’s do a workshop, come to New York we can work together, figure out staffing and work it out. You probably want to hook up with a big NGO because a lot of NGOs are working on that issue and let’s figure out a project and we will help you do it. Or just figure out one on your own. We also give away all our secrets on our website on how we do things.
Will you turn the Yes Lab project into a film as well?
Who knows? Maybe in the future.
The Yes Men Fix The World is out on DVD and features a host of extras including deleted scenes, biographies and additional actions and videos.
To find out more about the Yes Lab and other juicy Yes Men news sign up to their alerts at http://theyesmen.org
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