I have been working for over two weeks now on a post following my presentation on how the 5 Senses are simulated online and on the relationship between sensual experience and interface.
While I am somewhat overwhelmed with the numerous examples and the immense details i have to plow through when it comes to simulating senses online (and the reasons why taste and smell are so much more difficult to represent and replicate on any interface/ machine) – I started thinking about a new project – submitting a paper to a special issue of the magazine “The Philosophy of Computer Science” dedicated to Minds and Machines (scheduled for Fall 2010).
The call for paper (CFP as academics like to call it) lists no less than 27 topics – but question no. 7 immediately grabbed me:
“What kinds of things are digital objects? Do we need a new ontological category to house them?”
Thinking about the ontology of digital being and on “digital identity matters” as some researchers already put it, threw my brain into a conundrum and started that tickle that i guess i am addicted to.
After sometime i realized that even though i may not know much about Computer Science i am rather familiar with digital beings and i’d love to think about how they occupy space in the world, the relationships they hold among themselves, and the differences between digital and physical objects.
I’d like to do a George Perec inspired exploration – and to move from smaller objects (or spaces) to larger ones. Georges Perec was a French writer and a structuralist who experimented not only with language and content but also with form. For example, he wrote a book without the letter E (La Disparition), a 500 words long palindrome and composed crosswords for living.
Georges a un chat
The first item that i’d look at will be the autograph, from there i’ll move to letters (or e-mail to be more specific, including spam), folders, books and finally – libraries. Initially i wanted to write about songs and images as well, but they’re less textual based and the topic is already huge.
There’s also a song i like, which is just perfect for this post – it’s conveniently called “Folder” (!) by a band called “Plastic Operator” and the animated music video for the song was directed by Pete Circuitt.
It came as no surprise that i am not the only person inspired (or at least intrigued and entertained) by spam. Design studio ToDo from Torino, Italy came up with a great idea – wallpaper dedicated to spam. It’s called spamghetto – the junk-mail wallpaper – and this is how the ToDo folks describe it: “instead of sweeping spam under the carpet, we decided save some junk-mail in order to turn it into a wallpaper for your house before it’s too late: someday a brilliant scientist will find the definitive solution to eradicate from the web the bittersweet pleasure of spam.” Can you imagine a world in which there’s no spam? Who’ll sell all those viagras? and what will the spam bots do? demand unemployment benefits?
spam out of your mailbox
and up your wall
Manhood Attacks
speaking of the bittersweet pleasure of spam – here’s a good one i found in my mailbox – Drunken Jackman’s kiss was the title and the text doesn’t leave too much room for imagination – “Make manhood ready for the long and intense night attacks”. I sure hope that manhood is ready.
Ok Go Wallpaper People
and this is a cool video of the band “Ok Go”. This video has two versions – i find this one much funnier (song’s ok too). I think the idea for the video is taken from the movie “Garden State” in the trailer you can see director and actor Zach Braff wearing a shirt in the same pattern as the wallpaper. Braff also won a grammy for the soundtrack of “Garden State”
wow
THE LORD HIMSELF sends spam (and sells Viagra)
well, i am impressed, not so much by mr. G.O.D.’s supposed multi-tasking but by the attempt to recruit him to the spam industry . at least this one got my attention.
so – are you trembling and quaking yet?
the creative copy-editing continues at the email body – where we’re told that “Seymour’s back in town, the young man said, grasping again his spur”
it is therefore natural to couple this post with Belle and Sebastian’s” Seymour Stein.” This song doesn’t have a video but it is written in honor of “Sire Records” founder the person who found and signed a contract with Madonna (and the Ramones, Talking Heads, among others) it is also on the movie High Fidelity but for some reason it isn’t included in the soundtrack .
i crashed my bike in a truck once (i survived, the bike didn’t) so this kind of subject line definitely grabs my attention. esp when it’s in my spam box.
not that i have a car. but the disjunction between the subject line and the viagra the spammers try to sell me is weirding me out. can this kind of headline prompt me into buying viagra? i am intrigued with the copy-editors of spam. I wish i could pick their brains
buy viagra to crash your bike?
since that bike-truck accident i am fascinated with ruined bike.
here’s one from Paris, i saw them in the Marais, close to a park
1 way ticket to the blues
and this one is from TLV. not sure what happened to this car’s bumper or why it’s in the backseat. who knows? maybe a bike crashed the car…
Couldn’t resist opening this amazing spam. “Free Beast of Manhood” is not something you run into everyday. There was nothing in the email body except for a couple links and a warning from Gmail that “this message may not be from whom it claims to be.” What a surprise.
Googled it. Turns out that the essaystore folks/ bots are eager to write an essay about it.
essays store or freedom fighters?
There used to be an image there too, but now it’s gone. Nothing extraordinary, just a promise for “amazing prices” for “erection packs”…
I wonder who buys these essays? are they also consumers of “erection packs”?
and do you think that essaystore.com would know how to free the “beast of manhood” if they see one?
during my studies at the University of Toronto – I was haunted by prepositions. I felt like there’s no way i’ll ever crack the system, that i am doomed to confuse prepositions, that there’s no way out of the prepositions labyrinth.
while living in Toronto, I studied German (for 3 years! what was i thinking?) and realized that the Germans are very strict when it comes to their preposition system – every verb comes with its own preposition – so in order to know what you’re talking about (or if you want ppl to understand you) you better memorize the verbs WITH the prepositions.
spam – as the example in this post’s titleshows – is liberated from these constraints. I assume that non-academics (esp. native English speakers) are also relieved from this agonizing prepositions hassle.
but what can i tell you? this topic line is great not only b/c of the “slippage” (as we say in some academic circles) between being “in” someone or “into” someone. but the icon at the end ^) is also very revealing.
the first result when searching “totally in you”in FLCKR introduces us to Sasha, a photographer and a Breeders lover. check out her last splash
spam text: Find the One for You Christian Dating (ibid)
suggested image:
my friend went to the AVN (porn conference in Las Vegas) and all i got is this lousy jpeg
commentary: they may be sexy, but if them singles identify themselves as Xtians, aren’t their hearts supposed to belong to Jesus?
I am confused (needless to say, i didn’t touch the link in the spam – those sexy Xtian singles have their fickle ways – who knows, they may be even affiliated to xxxchurch.com)
sometime i think that spam is like poetry, or fortune cookey sentences.
Take this one: Better gasoline for male motor
Brilliant copy-editing, but the accompanying image is so ugly!
spimage - ugly with typo's
If only the spam folks were more imaginative – they could go to Flckr – and find much better images… I bet that their sales would increase if they’d use an image such as this one
alternative caption to spam mail:"baby i'm on fire"
Or this one, f.e., will surely find some avid fans. Won’t ppl like spam more if it would surprise them?
Agnes checks the gasoline hose (Feb. 1943)
This picture is part of the Library of Congress collection. It was taken by a photographer called Howard R. Hollem and I bet that it’s part of documenting the women effort back home when the men fought in WWII. I was almost tempted to use a much more provocative caption such as “pimp my ride”, but I didn’t want to offend poor Agnes.
So yeah, i am aware that i am redesigning spam mail intended to sell viagra right now- but check out the photostream here – so many gorgeous images are available. I am therefore calling all spammers to be more considerate of their audience’s aesthetic sensibilities – never mind the broken English, the typo’s, nevermind the viagras (!) i’ll forgive all that as long as you feed me with beautiful images.
