One Christmas present wasn't what it was supposed to be, as a girl opened her new iPod's box and found it contained... inappropriate material.
On one level this is a classic fearsome (or embarrassing) technology story. It offers the traditional juxtaposition of children and the adult world, along with the old danger-stranger meme.
But on a different level this story rings some interesting art and storytelling chimes. It's a form of mail art, with a mysterious artifact sent by snailmail to a recipient whose job is now rendered extra-hermeneutic. There's some anti-corporate art rhetoric there as well (see image).
It also has an alternate reality game/transmedia storytelling ring to it. Think of getting a portable device with cryptic content. And look again at the single sheet image copied here. Like the USB drives left in bathrooms for the NINgame, it suggests rabbit hole. One wants to check the lines of text for patterns in the vertically shifted letters.
Previous Infocultery on mail art: the excellent Ray Johnson film, that eBay-organized postcard-based prank-to-be.
(via Andy Havens)
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