e-mail art in the news

[David Dasinger]

This is from hotwired, copied and reproduced without permission:
(sue me!)


           Taking Email to the Stage
           by Mark Frauenfelder 

           5:04am  5.May.97.PDT The email stored on your
           hard drive could be part of an upcoming
           cross-media exhibition and performance. Ira
           Glass, who hosts a public radio program
           called This American Life, is holding "The
           Email Show" at Chicago's Museum of
           Contemporary Art, where an audience of up to
           300 will listen to people read their favorite
           email messages, either ones they have
           written, or ones they have received. 

           "Eudora has such a memory," says Paul
           Tough, a former senior editor at Harper's
           who's working on the event with Glass. Tough
           says that he's interested in seeing the
           differences between "The Email Show" and a
           similar "Letters" show that was held by Glass
           and his colleagues six months ago, in which
           people read their favorite snailmail
           correspondence to an audience. 

           "So much and so little gets sent in an email
           message," says Tough. "I find that people
           have the same learning curve," when they
           start using email. "People fall in love or get
           into serious fights early on, then they get
           burned. There's no time for sober second
           thoughts, no human safeguards as there are
           on the phone or face-to-face." 

           Margie Borschke, another participant in the
           show, says she hopes that people will submit
           missent email to be read. "A friend who runs
           the alt.culture.com Web site gets lots of email
           from little girls who think they are sending
           email to Leonardo DiCaprio." 

           Using email as performance and
           entertainment is a growing trend, says Dave
           Krider, who hosts Fun e-Mail, a site featuring
           prankish email sent to commercial sites.
           "People will gradually seek to differentiate
           themselves from others in their compositional
           styles as the inherent gimmick of email fades
           away. This differentiation could bring a
           renaissance of artistic written communication,
           as well as entertainment as people strive to let
           their personalities shine through the medium." 

           Anyone interested in participating in "The
           Email Show" is invited to email their
           submissions to yourmail at well.com by 10
           May. Tough promises that every submission
           "will be read by someone" on the project team.
           Participants who live in Chicago will read their
           email on stage, while people in other parts of
           the world will call in and read their email over
           the phone. "We'll have that voice-of-God thing
           going," says Borschke. The readings will be
           held on 17 May and 18 May, and will be
           broadcast as a one-hour program on public
           radio stations across the United States during
           the first weekend in June.