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The Prank Virus

Mail art has a long and proud history of pranks, games, false identities and humorous deception. Ray Johnson was the perennial merry prankster, and his brilliant, deadpan gags are the stuff of legend. A recent string of pranks are slightly less funny, however, and those are the rash of fake projects which have appeared recently. These seem to be more of an annoyance than anything else. Being the victim of a prank can be amusing, embarrassing, or in the case of recent projects which promise documentation, exceedingly time consuming and expensive. Whereas I'm not opposed to the idea of creating fake mail art projects for people, I am opposed to the idea of promising documentation for fake projects. If the "What does ALICE look like?" project had only encouraged people to send me images of "Alice" without promise of documentation, I would not have been nearly as annoyed as I was. Earlier in the year, I had been pranked several times by Partisan d'Amour, an anonymous group which specialized in confusing people who ran mail art projects. They had sent me a contribution to Exquisite Square which appeared to come from Joe Decie of England, and in addition they submitted things to several mail art shows with their name but my address! It was very confusing for everyone involved, but for the most part it was harmless. Then "What Does ALICE Look Like?" appeared. I was hurt and angry that someone would do something like this to me, and set about collecting evidence to find out who this person could be. It's very strange to have someone use your identity-- very frightening and scary... it makes you feel powerless in a way. When I first learned of the project, I was so frustrated and annoyed that I nearly quit mail art on the spot. As the fake project progressed, however, I got some nice contributions from some wonderful people and decided to produce a zine as documentation (issue 36 of Shouting at the Postman). I apologize that I cannot reproduce these works in color as they rightly deserve, but the cost and time would be too great. I am also unable to publish the entries on the website as I don't have enough space. Recent Fake Projects "Send Your Finger-Nails"- Patricia Collins was the victim of this particularly disgusting fake project, which promises all participants a photo of a supposed fingernail sculpture. "Snails and Turtles"- Dragonfly Dream sent around an e-mail about this one a little while ago. "Send Something Which Shouldn't Be Sent Through The Mail"- Nick Powell of Scotland was the victim here, and according to a friend of his he was considering leaving mail art because of this. "Send Something Blank" to John M. Bennett. John isn't very concerned about this fake project, and thinks it's a reference to something he said once in an interview. K. Frank Jensen has been the victim of two false projects: "Missing Documentation Project Part-2" and "The Fake Projects Survey." This survey, which was sent out recently is itself a fake project which promises documentation. "Missing Documentation Part-2" is a supposed continuation of a real project Frank had recently which collected information about promised documentation which was never sent. Apparently this project made the prankster angry. Also, Frank's name and address appear at the bottom of the "Fake It" flyer. A Little Detective Work I received a copy of the Fake Projects Survey in an envelope with a Danish stamp a few weeks ago, and returned it to Frank in Denmark. While I was preparing the first version of this article, Frank sent me an e-mail to let me know that he had no such survey. I rooted through my pile of envelopes to be recycled, and examined the "Danish" envelope closely. I was quite surprised to realize that it bore a postmark for a country other than Denmark and the handwriting of the address matched that of one of my oldest mail art friends from that same "non Danish" country-- and it matched it quite well. I quickly wrote an article which pulled together all the evidence I had and positively identified the prankster for all the world to see. I felt exhilarated that I had solved the great mystery which had consumed my life for the last few months. I fired off an e-mail to the prankster- "I now have proof that it was you and I will tell everyone unless you apologize." While I was waiting for a reply, I started thinking about it. Why would this person who had been my friend for so long do something like this to me and other mail artists? And why would they distribute the "fake it" flyer as well? Why would this dedicated mail artist want to destroy mail art? I could only come to the conclusion that this was not the reason-- there had to be a much deeper purpose to the project for this person to go to so much work. The only conclusion I could come to is that the prankster is making some kind of statement about documentation for mail art projects. By creating these fake projects, he has guaranteed that many people who send out art for projects will get nothing in return. I assume that he is trying to teach people not to sit by the mail box waiting for documentation which may never come, and the lesson is this: One should not make mail art for the reward of documentation. One should make mail art for the reward of making art and sharing it with others. Once I realized this, I realized that I could not point the finger of blame at this person because their intentions are not evil, merely mischievous and perhaps a little annoying, but not evil. I quickly sent another e-mail informing this person that I would not reveal their secret life as a prankster. Of course, I could be reading too much into these fake projects, and they could simply be the result of petty revenge for one thing or another without any deeper meaning, but either way I hope that these false projects will end soon so we can be pretty sure that the art we're sending to people isn't going to be discarded because the project is a prank.

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