Snail (And We Do Mean Snail) Mail.
June 18, 2008
OK, time to slow things down a bit. Well, a lot actually. To a snail's pace in fact.
You may have heard of the Slow Food movement. Now, there's the Slow Home movement. Cities, libraries, even sex. You name it, there's a call to do it, so to speak, more slowly. The whole idea is to slow down, and enjoy certain parts of our lives that have been, in some people's views, degraded and diminished by all of our rushing about.
Now, here's a Slow Art project, from a group of artists whose URL reads "boredomresearch," Real Snail Mail. Bear with me for a minute, I'm getting to the point (as if there IS one). This project, direct from the University of Bournemouth in Britain, bills itself as "The World's First Webmail Service Using Live Snails." Yep. Three snails (Cecil, Austin and Muriel) have been fitted with miniaturized circuits (it's an RFID chip) and antennae that can pick up data from hardware located in their enclosure. You, the email sender, can go the website, fill out an email form to whomever you'd like, and hit send.
And then what happens? Well, perhaps best to let the Real Snail Mail website take things from there.
The moment you click ‘send’ your message will travel at the speed of light to our snail server where it will await collection by a snail agent. Once associated with the tiny electronic chip on the snails shell your message will be carried around until the snail chances by the drop off point. Hardware located at this point collects the message from the snail and forwards it to its final destination.
How long could that take? Well, depends on the snail, of course. It could be hours, days, maybe weeks. The snails move at about .03 miles per hour. Austin's done well (or is failing miserably?), delivering 10 messages so far. Muriel's struggling (or is doing great?), and hasn't managed to deliver a single email yet.
One of the artists told BBC News: "It could be quite frustrating for some people. It's completely subverting the system." You see, by slowing things down, the researchers hope to get people thinking about email, the technology behind it, and our attitude toward an "always connected, always on" lifestyle.
The project really struck me, because my two year old daughter's really loving the Frog and Toad stories, written and illustrated by Arnold Lobel. One of her favorites is "The Letter." That's the one where, duh, Frog sends a letter to Toad. Frog gives the letter to a snail, and it takes four days to get there!
If you're in Los Angeles for Siggraph in August, you're in luck -- the Real Snail Mail artists will be there to tell folks all about their snails. The snails themselves will not be trusted to make it to the airport on time. Instead, they will be viewable via snailCAM.
And yes, I couldn't resist. I've sent an email to my wife using the Snail Mail service. I'll let you know how long it takes!
I'm not hopeful that it will take months, though. Check out this disclaimer on the Real Snail Mail website:
Brilliant.
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