Artist in Residence 1/11: "419 is just a game…"
 
Linda Kronman and Andreas Zingerle are exploring different kinds of advance-fee fraud schemes.

Amplified by Internet technologies scammers increasingly seek out to reach victims trough fraudfull online representations and mass e-mails. We all receive proposals, in our inbox or spam filter, that in fact are attempts to scam a victim. Most of us delete the spams and have a critical eye for offers seemingly “to good to be true”, yet scamming is a big industry that many victims fall for. Scams come in various forms, some quite unbelievable, others smartly entwine in our daily practices. If we take a closer look into our spam filters, a number of scam stories reveal to be quite creative and immersing story worlds. These stories are designed to appeal to our emotions of greed, empathy or scarcity, making the presented offers and opportunities even harder to reject. 

Who are these scammers, what are their motives? What different kind of stories do the scammers use to approach their victims? Who falls victim for the scams? How can you raise awareness for internet scams? These are some of the questions we will further investigate during the spring 2011 artist-in-residency at Subnet.