Kudos to VJayBombs, ingenious street artists who once emblazoned L.A. with projections of ICE hauling off Jesus, and who just hit D.C. to plaster “Guardians of Pedophiles" on the Kennedy Center's "literal cover-up" and murky regime minions - bats, worms, turtles - on the besieged Reflecting Pool. Growing more ideological as the fascist stakes rise, they use peaceful but splashy projection bombing to "make our voices heard," sensibly arguing, "If you're gonna say something, say something."

It seems only apt an anonymous collective of renegades chooses as weapons the visual tools of their oppressors, slathering multiple regime cover-ups - like the attempted removal from National Parks of information on slavery and other historical facts that “disparage Americans past or living” - with their own rowdy retorts. Large-scale, dissident projections are part of a relatively new protest tradition, "accessible, disruptive, but not violent," that evidently grew from the Occupy movement. In 2013, using an Illuminator- like projector that came out of a car roof like a turret, one Charles Lechner projected an image of a ballot box stuffed with dollar bills onto Michael Bloomberg’s New York apartment; the Mayor, unamused, had him arrested.

projecting abstract visuals onto nearby buildings during house parties. That pastime evolved during the lead-up to the 2024 election into "Life's Projections," peaceful guerrilla protest that "sits right in the sweet spot of all our skill sets"; they now have over 300,000 online followers and merch - ICE guy with gun: "Our humanity" - to help raise funds. Moving through group chats, location-scouting, brainstorming - what will resonate, how to highlight absurdity and communicate clearly in seconds - they've progressed from "total novices" who blew a fuse by trying to run power through a car lighter to a large-venue projector.

Their goal is to effectively merge message with architecture in a story that unfolds like a digital billboard or comic strip and gets "the longest legs online - as many eyes as possible." Their projections across L.A. have ranged from No Kings messages to Matt Gaetz as Butt-Head to a spoof of Trump's endless, babbling State of the Union speech, with Trump holding the Statue of Liberty hostage amidst flashing messages of "Immigrant Bad!" and “Forget the Files!” A Super Bowl parody, "Redacted Bowl," featured........

© Common Dreams