On Scams - Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige

Since 1999, the artists have collected, archived, studied and traced back more than four thousand junk and spam emails, focusing on those that are intended to defraud their recipients. The type of scam that interests Hadjithomas and Joreige references reality – the news, or real events – citing existing conflicts in order to manipulate the reader’s willingness to believe. Written in the first person and structured like monologues, they often usurp famous individuals’ identities, posing as the children or wives of politicians or infamous dictators, claiming to possess a large sum of money that they need to urgently transfer. A substantial percentage of this money is promised to the one who accepts to help, usually a stranger, since no one else can be trusted.. http://hadjithomasjoreige.com/scam/