The Seed Message
What follows is the seed message in its entirety:
Hello.
You are receiving this message because you are linked to an information network that a whole lot of other people are linked to, including me, the author of the lines you are now reading.Within this network exists a (probably quite convoluted) chain of other individuals and other networks that have indirectly connected each of us to the other.
One thing that you've probably noticed about being attached to this network is that it has the tendency to transmit a lot of junk.Messages that have no relevance to you, chain letters, jokes you've seen forwarded a half-dozen times, spurious rumors, petitions on issues that you may or may not care about. Spam. Data noise.
I'm interested in the way that information like that survives in the Net, and I'm working on a project that will investigate the ability of a single piece of information (namely, this message) to survive and spread. This message is going to ask for your participation in this project.If the project doesn't interest you, I apologize for adding to the volume of unsolicited e-mails you receive in a given day. My intent is not to burden people with more information, but rather to explore how information works in a network, and, ultimately, to use the Net's information-spreading ability to *transform* an ordinary public space into an art-site, and to *produce* a collective, Net-authored artwork. Each participant will receive a copy of the completed work. If this sounds interesting, keep reading: if not, I apologize for taking up your time. Without further ado, the project:
***MEMEFLURRY 98***
One model of information theory is the *meme* model.I don't have room here for more than a brief simplification of meme theory, but it basically thinks about units of information (or "memes") as though they were simple organisms--some survive and reproduce, and others die.The goal of MemeFlurry 98 is to keep the meme outlined below alive and reproducing for three weeks, at which time there will be a sort of "family reunion."
On Saturday, December 5th, at 3 pm, Eastern Standard Time, call one of the following phone numbers.These numbers will connect you to a bank of public phones in the University of Arizona Student Union Building.
- 520-791-0126
- 520-791-0181
- 520-791-0152
- 520-622-9605
- 520-622-9104
I will answer calls for approximately 3 hours. Of course, since these calls are being directed to a public site, and since I will not be able to answer all the phones simultaneously, other people not associated with the MemeFlurry 98 project might also answer these calls. I think this interjects a necessary dose of chaos into the project.
If I answer the call, I'll ask you where you are from (I want to see how far the meme has spread) and I will ask you to provide me with *one sentence* from something that you ve read that day--any sentence, from any source--cereal box, morning paper, novel, personal letter, whatever. In short, I want you to call up Tucson and provide me with a meme you've been exposed to that day. The memes collected in this fashion will be arranged into one piece of text, a collectively-authored meme-poem, a portrait of the world of December 5, 1998. If you wish, I will take down your e-mail or snail-mail address so I can provide you with a copy of the completed "poem."
This project has the potential to transform an ordinary bank of pay phones into a temporary gathering point for people all around the globe, to make an everyday hallway in a University building into a zone that will perplex and intruige passers-by in the way that art should, to take the ordinary elements of our lives (the phone, the computer, the thousands of bits of text that surround us wherever we are) and use them as the raw materials for the creation of something extraordinary.
It can only do those things if the message survives. So, even if you can't or don't want to participate, please consider passing this message on to someone who might be interested.
Thanks for your time and attention,
Jebediah Brushwell
(For more information, write memeflurry@hotmail.com.)
(This project is an expansion of a similar project by UK artist Heath Bunting. My intentions are not to copy him or take the credit he deserves, but rather to perform a variation on his experiment, somewhat in the spirit of the scientific method.)
(For more on memes, check out www.lucifer.com/virus/memlex.html, or Richard Dawkins' book The Selfish Gene.)
"...all play is a voluntary activity...it is free, it is in fact *freedom*. A second characteristic: play is not 'ordinary' or 'real' life. It is rather a stepping out of 'real' life into a temporary sphere of activity with a disposition all of its own...Another, very positive, feature of play: it creates order, is order.Into an imperfect world and the confusion of life it brings a temporary, limited perfection." --J. Huizinga
"Theatre takes place all the time, wherever one is. And art simply facilitates persuading one this is the case." --John Cage
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