email narrative

‘Faceless patrons’ is an installation that documents stories used by Internet scammers in so called ‘overpayment check scams’. Scammers use scripted stories to reach their victims, yet when correspondence continues story worlds start to evolve. We wanted to take a closer look on these ‘419-fiction’ cybercrime stories, ‘419’ relating to the criminal code in Nigerian law that deals with fraud. While we were aware of the fact that we are dealing with scammers, we use a fictional character and narration to investigate how the scammers react to various turns in the plot. The story takes the form of e-mail correspondence where two characters are involved; one art patron created by the scammers and our fictional artist ‘Anna Masquer’. The scammers posed identity is often based on either identity theft or a confusing mix of several existing individuals, giving them the opportunity to remain faceless and anonymous. The installation setup consists of five photo-frames hanging on a wall. Each frame connects to a correspondence with a scammer and holds a photograph and a fake check that was received as an advance payment for Anna Masquers’ photos. By using a smartphone or a tablet the visitor can scan each photograph via a third party AR-Browser. Each physical photograph is then overlaid with an AR layer containing a video compilation of images. These images are the result of an online search in an attempt to confirm or invalidate the authenticity of the scammer’s character and his online representations. This search result tries to give a face to the faceless scammer, yet fails while the posed art buyer can be anyone or no one of the persons found within the search.

This work is set up as a fake hotmail account where the reader is positioned as though he or she is peeking into someone else's email account without permission. The reader sees all the emails that the fictional protagonist sends and receives. The story is a soap opera about love and sex, set in India.

Early email soap opera. No longer online.

This British mockumentary consisted of a (fictional) website documenting a (fictional) tv crew who were making a documentary about the solar eclipse in 1999. Readers who signed up in 1999, could see the web site develop from day to day, and were "accidentally" also signed up to receive private emails between the characters. As the eclipse approached the story became more and more mysterious and frightening. Murders happened and readers were able to join in the detective work. After the initial run, the website and emails were archived, but the website was no longer available by 2003. The Internet Archive has the cover page archived but no more. When the website was still online, readers could access the emails by clicking the "admin only" link which gave access to mock unix accounts for the tv crew.

An e-mail romance. Description on Steadman's website in 2001 read as follows: "Two Solitudes is a short work of fiction delivered through e-mail. Upon subscription to the service, readers receive, over the course of several weeks, carbon copies of messages exchanged between two persons familiar with each other, as they send them. Mentioned in many magazines and newspapers, on several radio shows, and on a European television program. Subscription requests should be addressed to ; place the word "subscribe" in the Subject line or anywhere in the body of the message. 23 September 1994." ELMCIP's editors have not verified whether or not the email server is still active, but the full text is still available at Intertext Magazine.

An email novel that forms a sequel to Rob Wittig's Blue Company, originally sent out in emails to a small group of readers over the course of the summer of 2002, and later published on the web as an archive of emails in August 2003 by frAme Journal of Culture and Technology.

A novel told in email. Readers subscribed and received at least one e-mail per day for the month of May 2002. Blue Company is part one of a two part fiction; the second part is "Kind of Blue" by Scott Rettberg. Blue Company's e-mails are from a young marketing guy, Berto, who has gotten a really bad job transfer. He's been transferred to Italy, which is great, but he's also been transferred to the 14th century, which is dangerous and uncomfortable. The e-mails are nominally addressed to a woman Berto met shortly before his departure, and as he courts her we learn the story of his travels with a small group of 21st century corporate mercenaries called the "Blue Company" toward a fateful rendezvous beyond Milan. The e-mails are illustrated by hand since, of course, there were no cameras in the late middle ages.