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Gentle giggling in accounts. Random guffaws in personnel. Despite much trumpeting about the death of the book, the newspaper, innocence etc, the biggest revolution wrought by the internet has been in amusement at work. Thanks to e-mail, once-cheerless days at the office have been brightened by infectious mirth.
Years ago, I received an e-mail containing a blurry video showing the admirable progress of a worker's violent assault on his recalcitrant computer. Later, I discovered that the apparent CCTV footage was in fact publicity for a security company: the clip turned out to be one of the first examples of the "viral", a medium now subject of an exhibition at London's Institute of Contemporary Arts.
With similar distribution to computer viruses, but without the latter's bland malevolence, virals
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guy dammann asks whether online ads really need offline exhibitions
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range from five-minute videos to scraps of text - anything, in fact, provided it succeeds in grabbing attention (like this spoof ad, left, part of the exhibition). Many are produced by tech-savvy individuals for the greater amusement of all, but most seek to publicise something, taking advantage of the creative and legislative freedoms implicit in internet media.
As a celebration of informal creativity, the ICA exhibition is certainly both well-timed and well-aimed. But it does beg the question of whether a virtual phenomenon needs an actual exhibition space. Isn't this like publishing a blog as a book? Ah, but they do that too now, don't they? Outrageous and Contagious is at the ICA from May 1 - 8 (closed May 2). The exhibition will also see the launch of Germ, the viral Oscars. 
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POSTED APRIL 27, 2006
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