{"id":264819,"date":"2026-04-13T01:51:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T01:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/264819\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T01:51:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T01:51:09","slug":"coachellas-anarchic-hippos-are-back-now-as-bumbling-media-barons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/264819\/","title":{"rendered":"Coachella’s anarchic hippos are back, now as bumbling media barons"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cAll Hippos, the drone is in the control room, give us your all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vanessa Bonet of the installation art group Dedo Vabo watched over a mission-control monitor deck, as the buzzing craft climbed into room full of braying hippos in rumpled suits. The beasts were, ostensibly, running a menacing communications conglomerate in a satellite tower looking over the main field of Coachella, but now they were spooked. They scampered around the office looming above the Outdoor stage, while delighted fans on the ground watched them flail behind glass. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you put a hippopotamus in a 10 foot enclosed space for 12 hours, they tend to go a little crazy,\u201d Bonet said, picking up her CB radio to tell one hippo their mask had slipped off. \u201cIt takes a lot of work to keep this running.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coachella veterans were chuffed to hit the grounds and see \u201cNetwork Operations,\u201d<\/a> the long-awaited return of Dedo Vabo\u2019s hippos. It\u2019s a years-long installation gag on the polo fields where actors (and Coachella performing artists) in hippo masks pantomime working at evil-ish corporations before the operation blows up in their faces by Sunday evening. <\/p>\n

\"Festival <\/p>\n

Festival goers observe \u2018hippos\u2019 at exhibit, \u2018Network Operations\u2019 at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival at the Empire Polo Club in Indio on Saturday, April 11, 2026. <\/p>\n

(Christina House\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

While the project began in a room at the infamous Cecil Hotel in downtown L.A.\u2019s Art Walk in 2008, they\u2019re now synonymous with Coachella and back on the field for the first time since 2019. Artists from the young punk band Die Spitz and Janelle Mon\u00e1e\u2019s crew have taken spins in the costumes (they\u2019re hoping famed animal rights activist Moby might be up for a turn this year.) Past installments have seen the hippos found a power company, join the space race and tank the stock market. <\/p>\n

\u201cNetwork Operations\u201d is a little slice of the arty anarchy that defined Coachella\u2019s early, pre-influencer era. In a season of Hollywood marked by mega-mergers from well-funded nepo children, there is something timely about these oblivious creatures smashing up a printing press and a broadcast studio. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe hippos are mimetic. It\u2019s little bit of a reflection of society with dark, absurdist humor,\u201d said Dedo Vabo\u2019s Derek Doublin. \u201cThis is your friendly global neighborhood multi-conglomerate telecommunications and broadcast company. They hold enormous power but they\u2019re also clueless about where they\u2019re going with it.\u201d <\/p>\n

If any of the Skydance\/Paramount brass <\/a>are on the field, they might find the situation a bit resonant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cAll Hippos, the drone is in the control room, give us your all.\u201d Vanessa Bonet of the installation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":264820,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[116003,12837,116009,21495,116004,116006,5788,7775,116007,116011,48,52,51,479,47,50,49,116005,116008,1744,116010],"class_list":{"0":"post-264819","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-anarchic-hippos","9":"tag-artist","10":"tag-bumbling-media-baron","11":"tag-coachella","12":"tag-control-room","13":"tag-dedo-vabo","14":"tag-downtown-l-a","15":"tag-ground","16":"tag-hippo","17":"tag-janelle-monae","18":"tag-la","19":"tag-la-headlines","20":"tag-la-news","21":"tag-little-bit","22":"tag-los-angeles","23":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","24":"tag-los-angeles-news","25":"tag-main-field","26":"tag-network-operations","27":"tag-space","28":"tag-vanessa-bonet"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264819\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}