“Proto-Spam: Early Forms of Spam as Vernacular Performance on Usenet” presented by Paloque-Bergès
Symposium:
- ISEA2010: 16th International Symposium on Electronic Art
-
More presentations from ISEA2010:
Session Title:
- ‘Press Delete’ – The Politics and Performance of Spamculture
Presentation Title:
- Proto-Spam: Early Forms of Spam as Vernacular Performance on Usenet
Presenter(s):
Venue(s):
Abstract:
As a form of unsollicited advertisement, spam relates to offline media strategies. But spam has its own vernacular archeology, rooted in the folklore of the pre-Web Internet. Identifying proto-spam needs not searching for the first ever spam, but researching its primal media language forms and practices, at the level of discourse and software, context- and community-related, preinstitutional – i.e. a vernacular use of the Internet. We research sub-cultures from the depth of the pre-Web Internet (especially Usenet) on the stage of interpersonal communication, while questioning “Vernacular [as] crucial to [an] interest in power; in a community’s vernacular discourse are in-sights into its conception of itself, its negotiation of its identity, and its interactions with other communities” (Flores, 2009). With the help of a Media Archeology approach (Ernst, 2006), we dig out the experimental layers in the history of spam.
