Look, I think we can all agree that it’s not a great idea to post too much information about yourself to the Internet (particularly if you’re a criminal), and we can also agree that there’s probably a point at which one can indulge too much in mobile porn, or watching live cams, but one can make those points without being a complete and utter douche about it, right?
Well, if one happens to be an Italian artist named Salvatore Iaconesi, then the answer to that question is no, apparently. In fact, Mr. Iaconesi has decided that he needs to be a super mega uber douche when it came to making his point.
How so, you ask?
According to Forbes.com, in creating his website (which I will not bless with a link from this page) Iaconesi “captured more than 100,000 public comments on porn and sexually-oriented websites in which users left their mobile phone number to male/female/transgender performers, where everyone could see it.”
Iaconesi then created a series of paintings, each of which features one of these public comments, and he is now selling this paintings for 50 Euros a piece (plus the cost of shipping, of course!).
If you’re concerned that your own number might be among those listed, Mr. Iaconesi will allow you to check his database of numbers for a mere 10 Euros (how nice of him, right?). If your number is in his database and you would like to have it removed, and prevent your phone number from being part of a painting purchased by some lover of phone-number-art… that will cost you 1000 Euros.
If this sounds like extortion to you, fear not — it isn’t extortion, and I know because Mr. Iaconesi himself says it isn’t.
“According to a lawyer’s point of view this could be confused with extortion or blackmail,” Iaconesi said, according to Forbes. “This action we are doing is not an actual extortion on people. It is an artwork which is also a scientific research.”
Riiight, sure it is. We all know how common it is for artists and scientists to offer people the opportunity to pay said artists and scientists to not be included in their projects and/or research.
Yes indeed, this is nothing at all like a revenge porn site, or one of those sites that makes you pay to have your mugshot and criminal record removed. I suppose those sites could have been like this amazing artistic science project… if only they had painted pictures of their victims marks lovingly treated artistic subjects!
If I were Mr. Iaconesi’s art instructor, I’d give this project a solid “D” — for “Dude, Not Cool!”