Week 3: Challenge – Image Virus

This week you will create an Image Virus.

Make an image that you feel is intriguing and appealing, and spread it around as many places as possible. Keep the credit anonymous. Photocopy the image and paste the copies on walls throughout your city (within reason – I don’t want you to get into trouble for fly posting), mail copies to everyone you know, post copies through letter boxes in your neighbourhood. On the back of the photocopy leave only an e-mail address and a hasthag. If anyone e-mails you, reply with only the image as an attachment. E-mail this image to everyone you know. Make a website for it, make it your status on social media – tweet it, post it, blog it. And get others to spread it around the internet; ask you friends to help. If the virus becomes widespread enough, you might find it returned to you, or used by others.
I obviously don’t want to get you into trouble – so please do this within reason.

The internet is a powerful space and will present you with many possibilities to spread your Image Virus. Track your Image Virus via any e-mails you receive, and with the hashtag. Do this for a few days, or even a few weeks, and then write 200 – 300 words on what happened and share your experience with your peers in the space below. Discuss what worked, and what did not work.

If you need a little inspiration – I once did something similar when I was studying and the results were as fascinating as astonishing.

Here is an overview of that project: http://spaceyideas.com/todonnalovebob/

Anna-Maria Pfab

I have thought long and hard about this challenge.  Working primarily in IT, my contact list, built up over 25+ years, has a significant bias toward those in the broad field of IT.  Junk mailing them with an image and the tag Image Virus is likely to achieve little more than to test their firewall.  I have tested this premis on our servers, within a walled garden (essentially a secure virtual environment designed for testing web-based matters). Our security blocked the message from being sent… even if ‘virus’ was not in the subject.

Moving away from the IT side of things, I question the positive influence of junk mailing potential clients or flyposting their neighbourhood.  Oxford City Council has fought against this proactively for many years (New powers used to tackle blight of flyposting) with fines of up to £2500 in addition to on-the-spot-fines.

For me to participate in this challenge, a rethink is required. When time allows, I will endeavour to turn to a more research-based ‘virus’.  Many years ago I was given a Kodak Junior No.1A, complete with 100’s of negatives.  A recent house move revealed them once again and I had the inclination and a little time to look further, revealing a fascinating story of life in India or perhaps Egypt in the early 1900’s.  I would love to know more, so perhaps using the Internet to spread these images may help.

The best I have achieved thus far is that the vehicles are Holt Tractors which were introduced to the army in 1913.