Romanian Computer Artist Turns E-mail Spam into Art

Applying computational modeling, information visualization and algorithms to incoming junk mail, Alex Dragulescu has come across a new form of artistic expression. Spam e-mails are the catalyst for Alex's spam plants project. Through analyzing ASCII values comprised in the spam messaged in order to produce images of plant ersatz structures, complete with petals, twigs and leaves, based on attributes extracted from junk mail data. The truth is that with such a level of automatism and the stochastic variables inherent to the spam related process, Alex has come as close as possible to postmodern surrealism. Currently, Alex is head of the research laboratory Experimental Game Lab, at the Center For Research and Computing and the Arts (CRCA) that is part of the University of California at San Diego.

"Computer languages and algorithms are ubiquitous in our lives, but they're hidden. Spam was this material that was discarded and hated by everybody. It was good material for us ... and then I said, 'What else can I do with this?' By analyzing text using computational linguistics methods, you can detect anger and sadness. Turning those into gestures in three dimensions, that would be interesting," said Dragulescu.

At the present time, Alex is concentrating on developing a program that would discern through emotions contained in text that would consequently generate artistic gestures.

Image Courtesy of Alex Dragulescu.