Michael Lorenzen's blog directed my attention to an interesting news article on Yahoo News, "Fake drug, fake illness -- and people believe it!" Australian artist Justine Cooper created a faux marketing campaign for a imaginary drug called Havidol an equally imaginary disorder, Dysphoric Social Attention Consumption Deficit Anxiety Disorder (DSACDAD), for a media exhibition at the Daneyal Mahmood Gallery in New York.

The catch is that some people don't realize it is all fictitious and it is the artist's view of society and marketing from drug companies.

Cooper states "Havidol taps into our collective desire and expectation that there is always room for improvement, while walking the line between poking fun at ourselves and wondering how to obtain a prescription. The marketing message leaves us with the sense that we are never good enough, nor have enough. Are we a society of hypochondriacs, or are we biologically built and genetically urged to out-compete our peers and former selves? Cooper's works on exhibition comment on our temperamental relationship to western medicine, built upon the idea of a malfunctioning body or mind, and the yearning to believe everyday life can be remedied."

According to the gallery, when the Havidol site first went up, it had 5,000 hits, has since reached a quarter of a million and has been folded into real web sites for panic, depression, and anxiety disorders.

Interesting.