Global capitalism has produced hundreds of millions of bored office workers who sit in front of computers forwarding emails and surfing the web, inadvertently creating the “Bored at Work Network” (BWN). The BWN has become the largest alternative to the corporate media.

Activists, artists, and hackers can reach millions of people through the BWN. We are a small group dedicated to creating content for the BWN, including email forwards, net art, joke web sites, phone lines, and weblogs. The Contagious Media Project consists of four initiatives that have reached millions of people: the Nike Sweatshop Emails, the Rejection Line, Black People Love Us, and Fundrace.org. This quartet illustrates the practical application of concepts like emergence, 6-degrees of separation, and tipping points. The work starts small and spreads virally to millions of people without any promotions, advertisements, or press releases. In the end, the mass media picks up the story as a trend, and the work is able to permeate the culture at multiple levels. This lowbudget, bottom-up approach makes it possible to create a global cascade that begins with a small group of friends and extends to the set of CNN or the Today Show. The Contagious Media Project suggests new opportunities for artists and activists in the networked age.

Links: http://www.contagiousmedia.org

Jonah Peretti (USA) is Director of R&D at the Eyebeam center for art and technology in New York City, where he leads an open laboratory for art and technology experiments. He is a graduate of the MIT Media Lab, and has taught at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications program, Parsons School of Design, and the Kitchen Summer Institute.

Michael Frumin (USA) began his career in original and creative technology-based research while working on advanced networking protocols as an undergraduate at Stanford University. He accepted an R&D Fellowship at Eyebeam, where he has been the primary developer of http://www.fundrace.org and http://www.reBlog.org.

Chelsea Peretti (USA) is a New York-based stand-up comic and writer. She graduated from Barnard College, Columbia University, where she was a member of the comedy improvisation group Six Milks. Chelsea co-created the Rejection Line and the web satire BlackPeopleLoveUs.com with her brother Jonah.