Genre Conceptual Writing Pages 399 Page count 399 | Publication date 2012 Originally published 2012 Publishers Traumawien, Vienna | |
Similar Lunar Park, Bret Easton Ellis: American, Less Than Zero | ||
American Psycho is a conceptual novel by Jason Huff, Mimi Cabell and Bret Easton Ellis, published in 2012 by Traumawien.
This book was made by sending the entire text of Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho between two GMail accounts page by page. Contextual advertising presented by Gmail on each page was saved and added back into the text as footnotes. In total, over 800 relevant ads have been collected for the book. The footnoted ads throughout these pages retell the story of American Psycho in absence of the original text. This retelling reveals GMail's unpredictable insensitivity to violence, racism, and sex. It serves as a blurry portrait of an algorithm that exists in our everyday communication simultaneously forming a new portrait of the lead character, Patrick Bateman.
The book was part of Erreur d’impression at the National Gallery Jeu de Paume, Paris in 2012 and received international attention.