Mike Bonanno

Igor Vamos is an internationally known multimedia artist, leading member of The Yes Men (under the alias Mike Bonanno) and an associate professor of media arts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He is the recipient of a 2003 Guggenheim Fellowship, granted for a project that used Global Positioning System and other wireless technology to create a new medium with which to view his documentary Grounded, which is about an abandoned military base in Wendover, Utah. While at Reed College, Vamos organized a student group called Guerrilla Theater of the Absurd. They performed and documented "culture jamming" acts of protest, including the Barbie Liberation Organization, where Vamos and his cohorts purchased 300 Barbie and G.I. Joe dolls, switched their electronic voice boxes, and then returned them to the stores. The soldiers ended up saying things like, "Let's go shopping," while the Barbies exclaimed, "Vengeance is mine." Bonanno co-directed the award-winning films The Yes Men and The Yes Men Fix the World (Mountainfilm 2009), as well as The Yes Men Are Revolting (Mountainfilm 2015).