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Bas Beima on his Spamart:
Since the beginning of it I was intrigued by SPAM.
First it came once in a while; unwanted mail. Why would someone send me this?
Then there came more and a little later it came by truckloads....
At that time it began to bother me, like everybody else and I started to throw it away, but halfway 2002 I started reading the silly mails I got. All kind of stuff was offered to me (100% or so from the U.S. notably) most of which I did not even know existed!
The subject headers alone were intriguing to say the least, not to mention the names of the senders.
The fun came when spammers started to change the words to try passing by clever SPAM filters.
Words like VIAGRA suddenly became V.I.A.G.R.A. or V1@gRa.
Texts like “Email Your Web Site to 27 MILLION PEOPLE”.....
“Add inches with the pill”, “ Beef up the size of your Willy!” to name just a few got my attention and I started to “translate” these crazy texts to other rather traditional materials like wood, paint, and large format prints. A series of T-shirts with Spam-texts like: “click here to enlarge your penis!”
But the spammers went further: there started to appear texts without any meaning as part of their effort to get through the Spam filters it seemed. Sometimes just as part of the message text, sometimes in a type face so small that you cannot read it at all without enlarging the type size, or light pink text on a white background.
Upon closer inspection these texts are rich in really fascinating word combinations like “ Shakespeare megaton pray”, “corporate cheescake”,
When people suggest that “I could also think of texts of my own to paint” I always try to explain to them that this might be true, but that my intention is to capture the present. The cultural momentum we experience the last couple of years through the internet and now by this spamming.
Actually I compare myself more to a landscape or portrait painter. Of course they can paint a landscape or figure from their fantasy, but that does not capture anything other than just that.
On the other hand I do things with the texts I choose: saw out the letters from plywood, paint them on old tables, print them on T-shirts or fabrics. I also designed a series of watches and wall clocks with intriguing texts such as “ doont leet your wife knoow how much monney you own”, “ Stop smoking in just 7 days” , “order your drugs offshore and save up to 70%”
Well, see for your self on the following pages.
Note that every piece is accompanied by a laminated and signed print of the original e-mail.
you can contact me in Amsterdam by phone: +31 20 4702046
or send me an email : bas @ basbeima.nl
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