So that’s university all done and dusted, what a rollercoaster.

I shall be starting work at Virgin Radio after a little sojourn to the US, hurrah!

Presentation is at 10am, room C4 in PSQ. On the off chance that there’s anyone reading this who fancies seeing me present this project, please come along!

Here’s some notes that I’ve put together for my presentation tomorrow - they are very rough but there’s a lot of content in there. As I may have repeated content already featured in this blog, I’ve stuck it behind a “more” link to save you, poor readers.

(more…)

The summary website for my project can be found here.

Here, have a dozen photos of my installation!

Quite delightful! I am very pleased with it. I’ve made a quick video of it to edit down for my press pack, the equipment made me wish I owned my own decent camera and tripod, but there you go! which you can see here:

Happy 30th Birthday Spam! - “Spam - the scourge of every e-mail inbox - celebrates its 30th anniversary this weekend. The first recognisable e-mail marketing message was sent on 3 May, 1978 to 400 people on behalf of DEC - a now-defunct computer-maker.” -  Ahhh, many happy returns to my current favourite thing.

Tribute to inventive women - “Women are behind a much larger number of inventions than they are generally given credit for, a researcher has found…” - Interesting article which ties in to the context of my Narrative project from a couple of months ago.

Just some notes to fill in some gaps…

The field I am looking at is that of subverting advertising - considering what advertising says about our society and attempting to create something which playfully makes a comment on this, utilising the medium of spam e-mails.  My personal interest has been borne from research into this field from my second year Confessions project, using methods developed through my final year Narrative and Space projects, which have dealt with the relationships between physical spaces and digital technologies. I had also been inspired by the quote ‘you can tell the ideals of a nation from its advertisements’ by British novelist Norman Douglas. Inspiration also came from a photo I took in the second year of an 888.com billboard, which began the train of thought on the relationship between digital and physical manifestations of advertising and the unexpectedness of seeing something which previously had only been encountered digitally in the physical realm.

In this field, there are groups such as Adbusters, who create Subvertisements - subverted adverts which successfully use the brand identities and advertisements of well-known corporations to create their own messages about society. I have also been inspired by tactical media practitioners such as Google Will Eat Itself and Re-code.com who created have created projects which also contain such messages but importantly, these are done in a playful manner, which in my opinion lead to their success. These were studied in detail in my dissertation. I have also researched several artists which utilise the medium of sewing, such as Kate Pemberton’s depiction of digital items using embroidery and Ulrika Erdes‘ sewing graffiti.

My project is significant because it draws together many influences from across my university projects to create something which I feel successfully addresses the aim of creating a playful comment on society. It differs from the projects mentioned above because it deals with spam e-mails in particular and what they say about our society from a cultural viewpoint. It differs from other spam-based art such as spoetry in that it exists in the physical realm and seeks to raise the aforementioned questions about society.

The methods used for creating this project are highly physical and tactile, in order to create something which would bring the digital realm into the physical in an unexpected manner, in an attempt to mimic the playful way that tactical media works. I have collated spam e-mails and created an installation of a chintzy room which has spam hidden within the décor. This was done using a variety of physical media and uses ‘technologies’ such as sewing and drawing, again to depict these digital manifestations in an unexpected physical manner.  It has been important to keep the theme of ‘chintz’ as an interior design style, as it is old fashioned and serves as an interesting and hopefully humorous juxtaposition with the somewhat sordid contents of spam e-mails.  It has also been important to make these depictions of spam e-mails within the installation fairly subtle, so the viewer does ‘double-take’ and really examine the way that spam is used within the scene. Spam is present on almost all of the artefacts within the installation, in an attempt to demonstrate the ubiquity and spread of such an advertising medium.

Of course, there is always room for improvement for any project. I would particularly have liked to set up my installation in a gallery space, however I didn’t manage to secure anything suitable. In the documentation of the installation, this is not so much of a problem,  but I believe it would have had greater artistic impact for the viewers had it been presented within a formal gallery space. As it stands, it is set up in my bedroom, which is passable as I can move furniture to give adequate access to the installation. I would also have liked to have made use of slightly more ‘professional’ methods of production, such as screen printing, but the time and money this would have taken was beyond my means.

Just a few notes to help me pull together and hone down exactly what the critical context of my installation is.

Began with an influence from my work from the second year (Confessions project) which looked at Subvertising (subverting advertising). I became interested in the works of groups such as Adbusters, which became the inspiration for my dissertation.

In my dissertation, I looked at activist groups such as Adbusters and some key aspects of the subverting of advertisements became something that I wanted to take across to this project.

Something found when carrying out my research for the Confessions project was the 888.com billboard I saw in the street, which I found interesting in that it almost seemed like a détournement of itself - the presence of it in the physical realm caused a ‘double-take’ after it had been something experienced digitally previously.

Many of my projects for this term (for example Space and Narrative) have been concerned with reconciling physical and digital realms, by utilising methods which brought digital aspects into the physical realm - for example the analogue method of GPS walking for the Space project and the physicality of cross stitch to create QR codes linking the user to the role of females in computing, used in the Narrative project. The physicality of the items made in the projects became important by removing these from the digital realm and creating a physical tangible piece, for the various reasons stated within those projects.

Another influence was the quote ‘you can tell the ideals of a nation by its advertisements,’ which now has become to the utmost importance to this project. This is something that has also been relevant when looking at ideas such as Subvertising. I chose to look at Subvertising in particular for my Critical Contexts module, as my workshop demonstrated how to create Subverts in order that the user would cease to be a passive receiver of advertising, teaching how to subvert powerful existing corporate branding and advertisements to make new messages.

Anyway, I’ve digressed.

Again, linking back to my dissertation, I considered the ubiquity of advertising and how it permeates many facets of our lives, even more so in the digital realm. I also became interested in the methods used by tactical media practitioners (one of many types of activists) to create projects which not only presented the messages they wished to convey, but carried it out in a relatively ‘playful’ manner - For example, the work of Google Will Eat Itself and Re-code.com. (See my dissertation for a more in-depth explanation of their work.)

With all of these influences, I sought to demonstrate the ubiquity of advertising, as well as the messages that advertising conveys about society, in the aforementioned ‘playful’ manner, as I felt that it leant power to the tactical media projects I had researched.

One form of ubiquitous advertising within the digital realm is spam e-mails, I considered my own experiences of spam e-mails and what their contents would say about society. Reading through a selection of spam e-mails, you quickly realise that they are written to appeal to man’s vices, or the Seven Deadly Sins:

Lust - Spam e-mails advertising pornography or sex services.
Gluttony - Advertising weight-loss supplements.
Greed - Nigerian spammer e-mails which promise vast sums of money for supposedly helping people. Countless other ‘get rich quick’ schemes.
Sloth - Advertisements for online degrees.
Wrath - Interestingly, couldn’t think of, or find, a particular type of email which dealt with wrath.
Envy - Penis enlargement medications which promise to many you look like men in porn.
Pride - Fake rolexes. More penis stuff.

I’m hoping that through the ubiquity of these sorts of spam e-mails, you’ll know which e-mails I mean, otherwise, have a look at the ones I have taken text from for each item I have produced.

But anyway, as you can see, theses e-mails are made to appeal to man’s vices, so what does this form of ubiquitous advertising say about the ‘ideals of a nation’? Nothing good, that’s clear.

Now I have this very bleak view of society which I want to portray, however the tactical media ‘playfulness’ is something that I also wanted to bring in.

Again, considering the ideas I had used previously of the physical/digital divide, one way to subvert spam advertising would be to bring it into the physical realm. I then tried to think of the most incongruous way to represent spam, to bring the necessary humour I felt needed to be present. So I came up with the idea of a chintzy old-lady style room - to act as a juxtaposition to the content of spam emails - highlighting the sordid things they advertise. And there’s the fact that most old ladies don’t know how to use the Internet, to make it a little more incongrous.

The result is an installation which, at first glance, looks like the corner of a chintzy lounge. However, on closer inspection by the viewer, they notice the infiltration of spam into this scene, to provide a comment on the ‘ideals of a nation’ as promoted by spam emails and demonstrate a humorous depiction of the ubiquity of advertising in our lives by surrounding them with spam.

More blogs soon….

I decided to swap the lampshade for a cream one (instead of the pink I had before) which looks nicer in the colour scheme. I also decided to write on the inside of the lampshade, so it would show through when the lamp is on.

Text taken from this e-mail.

And the wallpaper is now finished! Quite pleased because it’s quite subtle…

Text taken from this e-mail.

Very pleased with how it’s going, it’s pretty much finished now! Just needs a tidy, a hoover, a dusting and a bit of tea in the cup then it’s ready for videoing.

I don’t think the spam is going to be very obvious within the video, so close-up stills are going to be important to include as well. But the video will give a good impression of how it all looks, especially with the ‘teletext’ and ‘radio’.

You can find a PDF of my dissertation here:

Vasillia Apostolou - Creative Activism: Is Resistance Pointless?

Still busy creating but nearing the end of it now.

Reupholstered the chair cushion and made a new one, added spam to the bottom cushion:

Side of bottom chair cushion - text from this email

Front of bottom chair cushion - as you can see the embroidery is only very faintly visible.  Text from same e-mail as above.

Next up, the fabulous lacy cushion:

And the detail:

Text from this e-mail.

Next up…another doily! This one is for on top of the TV, as you can see, the embroidery effect is so subtle that I’d had trouble capturing it!

Text runs around the inside edge of the central section - text taken from this e-mail.

And a close-up…

Have darkened this photo a bit, so you can see the sewing… ‘ultimate pleasure maker’ sounds quite fun!

With a lot of these, I’m now struggling to photograph them amazingly, because the effect is so subtle in some cases. But that’s kinda the point really. I’ve been jotting down lots of thoughts regarding my critical context, running through the relevant parts in my head and honing it down, so I’ll blog about that shortly.

And just for fun, you can see how the “room” looks set up…in my bedroom.  I like to think that I suffer for my art, ha.

With wallpaper n’ all! Obviously its not finished yet, the wallpaper still needs doing and I’ll be putting my bed out of the way for the purpose of documenting the installation.

Next update soon.