ERC1155TL

Luther Blisset

Luther Blissett’s idea of the “condividual”, described as “a folk hero of the information society”, represents a shared, collective identity that anyone can adopt. Rather than being a single person, Luther Blissett became a symbolic name used by multiple artists, activists, and writers in the 1990s to challenge the notion of authorship and individuality. The “condividual” embodies a fluid and distributed self — one that resists the capitalist and bureaucratic mechanisms of identification, surveillance, and ownership in the digital age. In this sense, it transforms identity itself into a collaborative and political act, emphasizing participation and shared cultural creation over personal recognition. Spam art, or the artistic use of digital noise, arises from a similar cultural logic. Artists working with spam art turn the excess and chaos of online communication into aesthetic material, revealing the absurdity of an information economy built on repetition, automation, and attention capture. By transforming unwanted data into creative expression, spam art destabilizes the boundaries between human and machine, author and algorithm. It treats the flood of meaningless information not as waste but as raw material for new meanings, playfully reimagining the dynamics of communication in networked culture. The connection between the “condividual” and spam art lies in their shared critique of the information society. Both expose how digital networks dissolve traditional ideas of authorship, authenticity, and control. The condividual uses collective identity to subvert individual authorship, while spam art uses the excess of digital messages to question the value and ownership of information itself. Together, they express a form of post-individual creativity — one that emerges from collective, anonymous, and often chaotic participation, turning the mechanisms of the network into tools for artistic and political resistance.

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