"The London-based urban guerilla artist Banksy has struck again - at Disneyland in Los Angeles. He put a life-size sculpture of an inmate at Camp X-ray in Guantanamo Bay, dressed in an orange jumpsuit with its hands and feet manacled, in one of the amusement park's star attractions, drawing attention to the detention of terrorist suspects at the Cuban base. Last week Banksy's target was hotel heiress Paris Hilton. He tampered with hundreds of her new albums in music stores around the country replacing her CD with his ow remixes and giving the tracks titles such as Why am I Famous?, What Have I Done? and What Am I For?" (London Lite, 11 September 2006, p.5).
Paris Hilton targeted in CD prank
3 September 2006
Hundreds of Paris Hilton albums have been tampered with in the latest stunt by "guerrilla artist" Banksy.
Banksy has replaced Hilton's CD with his own remixes and given them titles such as Why am I Famous?, What Have I Done? and What Am I For?
He has also changed pictures of her on the CD sleeve to show the US socialite topless and with a dog's head.
A spokeswoman for Banksy said he had doctored 500 copies of her debut album Paris in 48 record shops across the UK.
She told the BBC News website: "He switched the CDs in store, so he took the old ones out and put his version in."
But he left the original barcode so people could buy the CD without realising it had been interfered with.
Banksy is notorious for his secretive and subversive stunts such as sneaking doctored versions of classic paintings into major art galleries.
His spokeswoman said he had tampered with the CDs in branches of HMV and Virgin as well as independent record stores.
He visited cities including Bristol, Brighton, Birmingham, Newcastle, Glasgow and London, she added.
A spokesman for HMV said the chain had recovered seven CDs from two Brighton shops but was unaware that other locations were affected.
Artistic leeway
No customers had complained or returned a doctored version, he said.
"It's not the type of behaviour you'd want to see happening very often," he said.
"I guess you can give an individual such as Banksy a little bit of leeway for his own particular brand of artistic engagement.
"Often people might have a view on something but feel they can't always express it, but it's down to the likes of Banksy to say often what people think about things.
"And it might be that there will be some people who agree with his views on the Paris Hilton album."
A spokesman for Virgin Megastores said staff were searching for affected CDs but it was proving hard to find them all.
"I have to take my hat off - it's a very good stunt," he added.
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