User:Andre Castro/2.1/semniar-2012-10-10-summary

Project Proposal Draft

Short Description

For many of us our relation with spam emails consists in moving them from the inbox to the junk-mail directory of our email accounts, or even better, they are moved there by spam-filters sparing us from having to do it ourselves. However, if we take a look some of the unsolicited emails we receive we might find them curious, and might even amuse ourselves with what we find. My proposal goes towards considering spam a limit literary genre, and investigating its writing techniques as devices that can be used persuade receivers to engage in on-going exchange of text fragments. Despite being a simple exchange of emails, there would be an underlying narrative that unfolds as the exchange proceeds.

If we take a close look at some of the spam emails we keep on receiving we may consider there is something not too removed from a literary creation there. In my opinion there is a considerable amount of creativity, and awareness to the current global situation and society soft-spots, in spam emails. After all spam message must make use of these features, in order to make the message sound believable and persuasive enough for someone to be fooled into believing it. There are also the abundant language distortions that resulting from spam writing process, such as the heavy employment of stereotypes, the unconventional uses of the English language, Google-translate misinterpretations, typos, word obfuscation, recurrence of text fragments or characters under different contexts, which I find highly interesting. However, for various and legitimate reasons, we don't read the spam messages that arrive in our electronic mailboxes. Would we begin to read, and perhaps even respond to them, if their intention was not to try to extort money from us, but in producing fruition? Could spam promote fruition? Could it even ask for the receivers' active participation in that fruition?

I would like to give a positive answers to these questions. I will attempt to do so by appropriating spam writing and transmission methods, and re-purpose it, so that its central intention becomes not the extortion money, but of words. I will assume the role of a spammer, who sends bulk email to unrequested addresses. Those emails, although written by employing some of the techniques used by spammers, but contrarily to typical spammers, I will entice users to answer, so that together, through this exchange a collaborative text will be produced.

General Methodology of Work

The methodology I have employed in the constructions of my works generally begins by encountering a problem or frustration. I come across something in which I see potential, but due to some blockage, it is under-explored. As an example, I found a great wealth of audio material available at Internet Archive, however its interface tended to conceal most of the material. This frustration led me to ask how could the diversity and quantity of material become more apparent and accessible.

A stage of experimentation and research generally follows. At this point I try to broaden my question, find possible angles to approach it, find other approaches to similar problems, engage with my subject and experiment. The Engage with the subject seems crucial. It is a step towards the object of research, trying no to look at it from a distance, but to get close to it, to establish a dialog. This happen more clearly in Data Factory when I tried to engage direct-marking companies' employees into talking with me and clarifying my questions a bout direct-marking and users' privacy. Loose experimentation seems also important to my work methodology. From it a more precise idea about the materials I am engaging with is formed, and the final approach begins to surface.

The following stage is one of concretization of the elected approach, bringing it from its experimental stage, through various prototypes to its final from. It is at this point when most decisions are made, such as what to include or exclude, in what context should the project exist, how it will function, what will be its appearance. In the example I have been giving, I decided for an online radio, exclusively based on audio material from IA, that would group the sound materials under given programs with specific genres.

The resulting object is rarely, a solution for the problem which initiated the work process. Rather than providing an answer it will be an imaginative solution that ought pose more questions, and show the problem under another, perhaps unexpected, perspective. Hopefully such approach will challenge the value of the object in question, and allow it to reveal itself under another form.

Method

The method I plan to employ in this work consists in devising a pre-written screenplay, where certain variables a left open.

This script will be given to a writing robot who, based on it, will have the task of producing responses to the receivers who responded to the first email. Based on each responder's answers, combined with the bot's own choices, the screenplay variables will be filled and the subsequent actions taken, based on those variables.

Method step-by-step

• A first email is sent to a bulk of email address, containing a dubious, but somehow enticing and poetic message

• Once a receiver responds, and consequently enters the game, s/he will be enticed to keep on answering, to keep on writing. The writing bot, making use of its capabilities, will write a reply that relates to receiver's answer, but also opens other narrative paths.

• Several emails will be exchanged using this device. The more the receiver writes, the more the bot will get to know him/her, but also more wild and hopefully intrigued its replies will be.

• All the written material produced both by receivers and bot is collected (to be put to later use).

• At a certain point, the receiver who is in the game will be disconnected from the bot and connected to another human receiver, who happens to also be in the same writing stage. The central node - the bot - will remove itself as the central node in the communication, to replace it a connection between the two receivers will be established.