User:Andre Castro/2/Transmedial/report

Workshop Report

The booklet

The booklet that you are either holding between your hands or looking at through some form of digital display was a result of the workshop entitle 'Spam Publishing', integrated in the Post-digital Publishing Workshops on DIY publishing that took place during transmedial 2013.

I would like in these following lines to offer an overview of the workshop, as well as reflect upon the motivations that led me to propose doing a workshop on publishing spam. And outputs and questions that resulted from the work and dialogue with the participant.

the workshop description

The workshop premisse was simple one: "create writing and hybrid media publications from your junk mail folder". As stated we wanted to bring participants to look at spam messages as something more than digital junk that fills up our email accounts. We wanted, toguether with participants to look at small and hidden details of messages, at anomallies, at reoccuring elements and investigate them. we decide that a bestiary, a book where these elements could find there space and be properly portraited could serve as good documentation format, but also as a common hub for hosting and materializing the investagations undertaken by the participants in two short hours.

My expectation

From the onset I was expecting a positive experience out of this workshop. Several factors were pushing my exectations into that direction. The workshop was taking place at transmedial. It was a collaboration with the always hilarious and creative Silvio Lorusso. I was going to happen side-by-side with the 'Consent to Print' workshop by Eleanor Greenhalgh and Dave Young, and Florian Cramer's 'Make your own e-book in the epub format'. And lasty, it was about spam, my current area of research.

The workshop also gave a change to articulate my thoughts as to why am I interest in spam, what interesting findings I have made so far, and what I expect to get from spam. It also allowed me to see others making (or struggling to) use, the archive of spam emails I have been compiling and organizing in the last months.

And these were, quite selfishly (I admit that), but good enough reasons to consider the workshop as fruitfull and productive.

==Working with Silvio opened up some doors.

Besides the above mentioned motives, other variables made me walk out of the workshop and write these lines with a smile across my face. One of them was the collaborate with Silvio Lorusso. Silvio brought a good dose pragmatism 'Let's do it! Yes, a booklet!'. But also contaminated all of us, along with his up-beat humor, with the interest in remediation of digital materials into analog forms. What changes does the content undergo when its container changes? Is our view upon the content also transfomed? And under this particular context, will we see other sides to spam if remediated by print? Will print emphasize certain aspects of spam and relinquished others?

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Participants=

Then then third part of the equation - the participants - comes into the play. Their enthusiasm was contaminating the whole workshop and ideas were circulating at light-speed. Everyone seemed to have a slightly different reason to be in the workshop, but common to most was the interest to get bellow the surface of the unsollicited emails.

The participants started by looking for spam emails, in search of specific details that would arouse their interest. After a few minuts of investigation each group had already found its spam terrain.

• Botnet for sending spam.

Die Vopan Brueder gave themselves the task of finding a botnet that could be bought to send spam (containing the pdfs of this booklet). Making their way through Russian web-forums, Vopan Brothers eventually arrived at some individual, who advertised access to a bot-net dedicacted to spam. A contact to his ICQ number and a transaction was what needed in order to ceal the deal.

• The history of a lottery winner

Dave Dawes

Winning the lottery and being notified by emails is frequent to some us, even those of us don't play the lottery. That wasn't the case o Dave Dawes, a lottery enthusiast who won the British Jackpot Lottery. Out of sheer generousity he is willing to donate a percentage of his fortune to you. Dave reconstituted his path to fortune through several clippings. Congratulations Dave! Hopefully this publication will help to find someone worth your generousity.

Therefore one group decided to dissect them and investigate aht they could find from these emails. It happened that one of the figures often metioned in these emails has been a lottery winner in the UK. Apparently he is willing to share some of his fortune with others. The group decided to collect all the evidences found under a collage.

• Daughter of a Jihad soldier.

ADARA SALAMAT Another approach was taken by ADARAM SALAT, The daughter of the founder of Moro Islamic Liberation Front. ADARAM expressed her daupts on the efficient of Facebook to promote her cause. Although she owned five Facebook accounts and was an avid spammer, not much responses were arriving. This time ADARA decide to join this publication and try out a paper publication to promote her cause. Let's hope it helps.

• Puzzeled about Viagra adds.

noyan were digging into their inboxs, going back to 2007, and digging out whatever spam was left. A number of historical viagra adverts were found. Using the same visual formula, a colorfull text-box with misspeled viagra in capitals, the bottom of each email contained a short text, in small font-size, that seemed to make absolute no sense or play any role. Upon searching these cryptic text fragments, noyan found out they were extract War and Peace, The Holy Bible, and A Feast for Crows. noya were facing a case of Spam Lit, a spam technique in which literary texts are introduce to fool the spam filter into thinking that a friend with some literary inclinations, a probably a psycological disturbance, just decided to email some recent prose. noyan venture capitalistic spirit saw this formula not only as an innovative advetisement technique for books, but as future of literacy programs. Soon enough these beautiful adds adopted in large scale and will be selling billions of Dan Brown's and Paulo Coelho's.

• Spam Karaoeke environment

RoSa MenKmAN paranormal visionary soul forseened a future world where spam messages will be fed to karaoke machines. Dacing to electrifying rythms, looking color-exploding images, and singing to Dr. Oz's lyrics will transport into a world of red raspberries and protein regulated metabolist where bodies are perfect, weight is something of the past, and a smill is a must.

• The composite nonsense

Vivian Schlömer and Inga Schlömer decide also to excave their inboxes in search for oddities. A strange and also cryptic email emerged from the debris. Made of compiste words with no extractable meaning, either as a whole or as individual parts. The Schlömers decided to narrow the scope of their reseach to a single term [TERM MISSING]. The investigatation began with the disassemblage of its constituent elements [MISSING TERMS] A laborious search around the terms point them in the direction of [SKULL], a [DEFINITION] Is this the future or the past?

Conclusion

The explorations of spam undertaken by the participants brought with them an array of thoughts around the topic. Spam's archeology, and its constant metamorphosis were two of the most prominent subjects. Changes in spam appear to take place quite suddenly, drastically and globally. Why did we all stop receiving penis enlargement spam dissapeared in our mail-boxes? Why did we all felt that change at roughly the same time? Does that imply that the majority of spam is centralized? Or it is highly network? Generated by a myriad of small groups, aware of eachother's movements, following and appropriating the latest trend in spam?

And since change is constant how important is to register those shits? Does spam possess any cultural value? Does it deseverse to be considerated product of folk culture, and consequently ask for our preservasion effort? And why does such question arises in ours minds, in the first place? Is it due to its authorless nature of spam? Is it because its creative strategies are contaminated with money extorting intentions?

And at the same time spam seems to have a wide appeal. Why are so many people curious about spam? Wouldn't it be expected that most of us would treat these texts simply as internet debris? However there is something that hooks most of us to spam. Perhaps is the fact that intimate and confessional emails are entrusted to our eyes only, as a result of our good will and honesty. Perhaps is the desire to witness this stories infused with magic spells, distant lands, princesses and kings, and abundant wealth. Of course we all see them as a fiction, but could it be that we half-believe in them? That we take on a suspesion of disbelief beacuse we want to be told these stories, in which we are also characters?

Lastly I'd like to thank all the participants in the workshop, Silvio for making a head dive into this crazy project, Florian Cramer for having invited us to take part in Post-digital Publishing program of transmedial2013, and Piet Zwart (in the human forms of Leslie Robbins and Simon Pummel) for making it possible for us to come transmedial2013.