Eva & Franco Mattes

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Luther Blissett (1994-99)

Eva & Franco Mattes, Luther Blissett

 

 

In the summer of 1994, a group of individuals, including us, began using the name “Luther Blissett” to create a variety of public interventions. The concept was simple: anyone could become Luther Blissett by adopting the name. Over the following years, this multiple-use identity was embraced by hundreds of people in Italy and across Europe to trick the press into reporting fabricated events, hijack popular TV programs, sell radical books to publishers, conduct psychogeographic urban experiments, invent fictitious artists, publish fake websites, expose media witch hunts, and much more.

After dozens of media hoaxes, art projects, fake articles, actual magazines, books, comics, music records, and radio programs, Luther chose to bid farewell to the new millennium through a ritual suicide. This act represented the ultimate and most radical “escape to the bush” for this folk hero.

 

 

The fictional portrait of Luther Blissett.