A Gift For You!
INDIVIDUAL: Jim Kiel
GROUP SIZE: 677 – possibly thousands
NATURE OF GROUP: People executed by the death penalty world wide in 2001 (Amnesty International)
INCIDENCE OF SOCIOMETRY: A Gift For You!
Jim Kiel, of Aurora Colorado, sent a letter to the editor of Denver’s Westword newspaper in which he advocated a 100 point criminal justice system resulting in capital punishment. (See Pg. 8 of Westword Vol. 35, #15). His home address was easily retrieved from a simple google search.
“Assign point values that increase with the seriousness or violence of the crime, and when your convictions total 100 points, you’re executed” – Jim Kiel, Aurora
Almost a year later, every day for the month of October (National Crime Prevention Month, and including Oct. 11th World Day Against The Death Penalty), thIS agent mailed Jim Kiel clippings related to the death penalty around the world, starting with photocopies of two letters on the topic Jim Kiel had written to local newspapers, then initially a series of seemingly pro death penalty clippings, segueing to clippings on the death penalty internationally – mostly focusing on China and Iran – before concluding with a series of anti or educational death penalty articles.
An Innocent Man’s Tortured Days on Texas’s Death Row – ACLU
All of the clipping were mailed in identical envelopes with a letterpressed return address for the Institute of Sociometry partially obscuring the pre-printed gold-ink “A Gift For You!” vintage stationary and addressed to Jim Kiel with a typewriter. No personal information was included in the letters – only the photocopied clippings.
File copies of 31 death penalty related clippings sent to Jim Kiel.
No response was received to the letters. The 31rst and last planned letter, postmarked on Halloween was returned to sender marked “not deliverable as addressed”.
“NOT DELIVERABLE AS ADDRESSED” – USPS. Apparently the preceding 30 letters were fine with the same address.
———
ThIS report was originally released at iSFair 2O12.
Tags: culture jamming, death penalty, Denver Westword, guerilla art, guerilla communication, Guerilla Sociometry, Institute of Sociometry, is, is agent, iSFair 2O12, Jim Kiel Aurora Colorado, mail art, protest, Sociometry Fair
May 5th, 2013 at 2:49 pm
Absolutely brilliant!!