Some IOCCC winner's replies to 'double-blind Invitation'
executed by 'CODeDOC/Ars.Electronica' staff
(real names have been masked)
-----Original Message-----
From: Frank Black
To: Christiane Paul, Curatorial
Sent: 7/12/03 6:23 AM
Subject: Re: Ars Electronica Festival 2003 --CODeDOC II
Hello,
I think there's been a mistake - I'm not an artist.
However, I did look at the site, and it's very interesting.
Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
-- Frank
-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Bobby Red
To: Christiane Paul, Curatorial
Cc: iris.mayr@aec.at
Sent: 7/13/03 11:05 AM
Subject: Re: Ars Electronica Festival 2003 --CODeDOC II
Hi Christiane, hi Iris,
First of all, judging by the names (and Iris's address), I suspect your
native language is German. If so, please feel free to answer in German,
as I only migrated to Australia in '96, and originally come from Bremen,
Germany :)
> For CODeDOC II, Ars Electronica will invite 8 (mostly European) artists to
> continue the project and it would be great if you could participate.
> The assignment remains the same.
At this point, the always-present question presented itself: "Why me?".
I mean, sure, it sounds like fun, and looking at the "assignment", there
are all sorts of neat things to do.... But that's more the "why would I
want to do this?" part. What I wonder about is "Why would *you* want me
to do this?". You refer to "8 mostly European artists" --- now, neither
am I (publicly known to be) European, nor am I generally considered an
artist. Yes, I got my name on some weird and wonderful code, including
a category winner in the Obfuscated C Contest --- but "artist"? I don't
know.....
> The commissioning fee for each project is $ 500. I ccd Iris Mayr from Ars
> Electronica on this message -- she is responsible for contracts etc.;
> please contact her if you have any questions.
...and not being an "artist", I am completely ignorant here. Is a commissioning
fee something I pay you, or something you pay me? Or, to put it differently:
I am full of questions! Why me? What's going on? Is this just an extremely
well-done piece of spam I am replying to, attempting to get me to front up
$500 to become an "artist"? And if not, could you provide some more context
for this out-of-the-blue invitation? Like what timeframe we are talking about,
what platform to target, what resources to assume....
> Unfortunately, the deadline is ASAP
Aren't they always :)
> and it would be great if you could let us know what would be realistic for
> you in terms of a 'delivery date.'
Give me a couple of weekends, and I should be able to come up with
something interesting. Of course, it would help if I had some more idea what you
are after...
*Smile* I sincerely hope this wasn't spam; If it was, however, I have
to congratulate you on the quality of presentation, the targeted-ness,
and the overall believability. Either way, I'd appreciate if you could let
me know :)
Best of luck,
Bob "Bobby" Red
-----Original Message-----
From: John Green
To: Christiane Paul, Curatorial
Cc: iris.mayr@aec.at
Sent: 7/13/03 2:55 PM
Subject: Re: Ars Electronica Festival 2003 --CODeDOC II
Thank you very much for the invitation. I'm potentially interested, but
have several questions.
> For CODeDOC II, Ars Electronica will invite 8 (mostly European) artists to
> continue the project and it would be great if you could participate.
(Presumably you realize that I'm American rather than European ....?)
> Unfortunately, the deadline is ASAP
> and it would be great if you could let us know what would be realistic for
> you in terms of a 'delivery date.'
Given my current commitments and travel schedule, end of September.
Will that work?
And the most general question: how did you come to invite me?
John
-----Original Message-----
From: David Brown
To: Christiane Paul, Curatorial
Sent: 7/14/03 12:24 AM
Subject: Re: Ars Electronica Festival 2003 --CODeDOC II
I am flattered and curious about your request. Could you provide me with
any information about why I was selected as a possible contributor?
-Dave
-----Original Message-----
From: John Green
To: Christiane Paul, Curatorial
Cc: iris.mayr@aec.at
Sent: 7/14/03 2:09 AM
Subject: Re: Ars Electronica Festival 2003 --CODeDOC II
> I'm very sorry to tell you that this has been an
> extremely well-done spoof
Aha! In fact, here's the note I first sent to colleagues when it came
in:
> Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2003 01:02:39 -0700
> From: John Green
> Subject: sure, I get commissions from the Whitney all the time
> To: ...
>
> Did you get this too? I'm trying to decide if it's a scam, or if they
> just have me really really confused with someone else.
>
> John
I should have checked the original headers.
They show the mail came from
Received: from mail.whitney.org (213-140-22-154.fastres.net [213.140.22.154])
in case that's of interest.
> Another person who replied
> to the fake invite once won a category of the Obfuscated C Contest.
So did I ...
My sympathies for the hassle this creates for you!
John
-----Original Message-----
From: James White
To: Christiane Paul, Curatorial
Cc: iris.mayr@aec.at
Sent: 7/14/03 5:02 AM
Subject: Re: Ars Electronica Festival 2003 --CODeDOC II
Hello,
> Below is some information on this year's Ars Electronica Festival and the
> way in which CODeDOC II will be presented. Please let us know as soon as
> possible if you can participate.
Thank you for information on the CODeDOC II exhibition. I am just
writing to say that I am not interested in taking part.
James
-----Original Message-----
From: David Brown
To: Christiane Paul, Curatorial
Sent: 7/14/03 11:07 AM
Subject: RE: Ars Electronica Festival 2003 --CODeDOC II
Cristiane Paul,
I'm glad I checked. I didn't seem to fit the profile of the artists
involved in CODeDOC, so it didn't make a lot of sense that I was one
of 8 chosen for CODeDOC II. I have also won a category in the
Obfuscated C Contest, so that does fit as the source of the mailing
list used in the spoof.
-Dave
-----Original Message-----
From: James White
To: Christiane Paul, Curatorial
Sent: 7/14/03 12:45 PM
Subject: Re: Ars Electronica Festival 2003 --CODeDOC II
On Mon, Jul 14, 2003 at 10:55:56AM -0400, Christiane_Paul@WHITNEY.ORG
wrote:
> Dear James,
> I'm not sure if you already heard back from Iris -- unfortunately, this was
> a very well-done spoof. The text is the original one from an invite that we
> sent out to 8 artists over a month ago.
I must confess I was a bit suprised to be offered, but thought it only
polite to reply!
James
-----Original Message-----
From: Skip Blue
To: Christiane Paul, Curatorial
Sent: 7/21/03 8:08 AM
Subject: Re: Ars Electronica Festival 2003 --CODeDOC II
On Fri, Jul 11, 2003 at 12:13:03PM +0100, you wrote:
> Dear Skip Blue,
> as part of the Ars Electronica Festival 2003 -- Code - The Language of Our
> Time -- Ars Electronica will commission an 'extension' of the online
> exhibition CODeDOC, which I curated for the Whitney Museum of American Art's
> artport site
[etc]
I apologise for the delayed response. In answer to your last question,
if I were to take on this project it would most likely be a few weeks
rather than a few days, depending on the complexity of the final result,
since `real life' is keeping me somewhat busy at the moment.
I am curious as to how you came to send this invitation to me. I am
also curious as to the actual task description, as I can only find a
fairly vague statement - but perhaps that is deliberate, so as to leave
the maximum room for interpretation.
SkB
-----Original Message-----
From: Skip Blue
To: Christiane Paul, Curatorial
Sent: 7/21/03 11:55 AM
Subject: Re: Ars Electronica Festival 2003 --CODeDOC II
On Mon, Jul 21, 2003 at 09:31:22AM -0400, you wrote:
> Dear Skip,
> I'm very sorry to tell you that this is an extremely well-done spoof. The
> text is the original invite we sent to 8 artists over a month ago but the
> pranksters sent the message to previous winners of the Obfuscated C-Contest.
Heh. I must say I can see the warped logic behind that! (It did
occur to me to wonder whether the IOCCC had anything to do with it.)
Good luck with the project anyhow.
SkB
-----Original Message-----
From: Daniel Jaune
To: Christiane Paul, Curatorial
Sent: 7/21/03 6:11 PM
Subject: Re: Ars Electronica Festival 2003 --CODeDOC II
Hi,
Thank you for your proposal. Unfortunately I think I won't have the time
to make a significant contribution.
I find the idea of your exhibition very interesting. By looking at the
example of the last exhibition, I don't understand if the most
interesting items are the programs themselves or their output. My point
of view is that the code itself is the most interesting - a well written
code using original algorithms or concepts can really be a form of art
(for example I am sure you looked at some examples of the IOCCC contest
at http://www.ioccc.org).
Regards,
Daniel.
-----Original Message-----
From: Harry Gray
To: Christiane Paul, Curatorial
Cc: iris.mayr@aec.at
Sent: 7/27/03 3:33 PM
Subject: Re: Ars Electronica Festival 2003 --CODeDOC II
Dear Christiane and Iris,
I will gladly accept the commission for developing an exhibit for the
Ars Electronica Festival. I am a bit preplexed regarding the
assignment. The original assignment you mention as remaining the same
has as its theme "The code should move and connect three points in
space", while in your message you mention three thematic domains
"Code=Law, Code=Art, Code=Life". Which of the two is it?
Finally, regarding the delivery date I would like to have the time till
the end of August at my disposal. As you know creativity can not be
commanded or planned; my winning entries for the IOCCC were created in
days, but I would really prefer to allocate more time to let a
particular idea flourish. If that is a problem, please tell me the
latest day you would want the exhibit in your hands.
All the best, mfG
Harry Gray
-----Original Message-----
From: Harry Gray
To: Christiane Paul, Curatorial
Sent: 7/28/03 3:58 AM
Subject: Re: Ars Electronica Festival 2003 --CODeDOC II
Christiane_Paul@WHITNEY.ORG wrote:
> I'm very sorry to tell you that the message was a very well-done spoof--
> while the message text was the original one we sent to 8 artists about 6
> weeks ago, the fake invite was sent to all the previous winners of the
> IOCCC. It would be wonderful, if we could have all these people participate
> and I'm sure it would make a terrific exhibition but unfortunately, we don't
> have the budget to do that.
I thought it could be a spoof and should have checked the (forged) mail
headers, but human vanity lowered my (supposedly sophisticated - I
lecture IT security at our University) defences. Sorry to have troubled
you. I nevertheless had the opportunity to enjoy last year's exhibits,
think creatively for my entry, and learn a lesson on the power of social
engineering attacks.
Nevertheless, the idea of tapping into the IOCCC crowd could be an
interesting possibility; as you know us guys are working for things not
unsimilar to the stuff you commission for free :-) Maybe next year you
can setup a contest-like event.