Modern art really can make you sick

Do you have DSACDAD? A spoof disease made up by an artist to mock US drug companies' adverts is so convincing that some New Yorkers think they've got it.

Australian artist Justine Cooper created the 'marketing campaign' for an imaginary drug called Havidol for Dysphoric Social Attention Consumption Deficit Anxiety Disorder (DSACDAD). Havidol has the 'generic' name of avafynetime and its ad slogans include such gems as 'feeling better is not enough'. The exhibit at the Daneyal Mahmood Gallery in New York includes mock television and print advertisements and billboards. An example appears below.

In the first few days after the website (www.havidol.com) went up, it had 5,000 hits. The last time gallery owner Daneyal Mahmood checked it had reached a quarter of a million.

Mahmood told Reuters: 'The thing that amazes me is that it has been folded into real websites for panic and anxiety disorder. It's been folded into a website for depression. It's been folded into hundreds of art blogs'.

Artist Justine Cooper says the parody is in response to the tactics used by the drug industry. Consumer advertising for prescription medications, which are a staple of TV advertising in the USA, was legalized in the country in 1997.

'The drug ads themselves are sometimes so comedic. I couldn't be outrageously spoofy so I really wanted it to be a more subtle kind of parody that draws you in, makes you want this thing and then makes you wonder why you want it and maybe where you can get it,' she said.

It's an interesting piece of art which should get us all thinking about our attitudes to diseases and drugs. The only question that remains is whether this media campaign is a genuine reflection of public reaction or another part of the spoof — parodying consumer panic — or just a smart way of telling the world about Mr Mahmood's art gallery. Blimey, art's complicated.