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It was one thing to have your embarrassing love letter read aloud to the class in elementary school. It's a far different situation when it's published on the Internet without your knowledge or consent.
Yet that is the premise of a growing number of online "found object" websites, whose amateur curators are mining the world's gutters for intriguing scraps of paper and strange discarded photographs. Their discoveries are posted online, sometimes with commentary; other times, simply bagged like evidence and labeled "artifact."
Among the once-discarded treasures now preserved and displayed online are the self-absorbed love letter of an unfaithful boyfriend, a hastily jotted memo espousing the benefits of getting "in touch with your pelvic floor," and a photograph that the subject clearly never intended to be seen by anybody ever.
Not everything on these sites could be categorized as personal, of course. Some of it is just plain weird.
Take this flyer tacked to poles around New York after Sept. 11 featuring a patriotically attired Chihuahua, or this poster for a Japanese musical based on The Diary of Anne Frank. Even a discarded pill strip (birth control perhaps?) makes the cut.
"I love these found notes, especially. It's amazing how powerfully you can connect with someone just reading a half-page love letter," says Davy Rothbart, the appropriately titled founder of Found Magazine, which is composed of content from once-discarded scraps of paper.
Less than a year old, Found Magazine has attracted hundreds of subscribers to its print edition and thousands of daily visits to its website, which Rothbart operates with help from webmaster Jason Bitner.
Far from being an isolated online phenomenon, found-object websites are part of a growing trend that views society's detritus as a means of creative expression.
Princeton Architectural Press is behind no fewer than three new books based on found collections: Speck: A Curious Collection of Uncommon Things, Lost: Lost and Found Pet Posters From Around the World and Photobooth (due on shelves this October).
Galleries and art dealers who trade in "outsider art," which encompasses the work of non-artists (preferably obsessive-compulsive ones), are expanding to include found photographs and illustrations in their inventories.
Artists, too, are incorporating other people's trash into their pieces. For example, a program at the Sanitary Fill Company, just south of San Francisco, pays artists to create sculpture out of the city's waste.
(Amusingly, London conceptual artist Tracy Emin, best known for putting her unmade bed in a museum, recently had her very real missing cat posters taken down by neighbors who mistook them for valuable art. Even The Simpsons has gotten into the act, with an episode about Homer's ascension to art fame for his outsider sculptures, which actually are dramatically bungled home-improvement projects.)
Some online trash curators proudly categorize their exhibitions as big-A Art. But for Brooklyn webmaster Jack Szwergold, posting found objects online is a form of comedic expression -- not to mention a good way to polish up his Web skills. While working as a webmaster for The Onion in Madison, Wisconsin, the hand of fate shoved a Lost Ferret flyer under his door.
"I thought it was one of the funniest things ever," Szwergold says.
He shared it with his co-workers and quickly surmised that an even broader audience existed beyond his cubicle walls.
And indeed, trash collectors of the world are beginning to unite, thanks to the Internet. Until he started Found, Rothbart thought he and his friends were alone in their passion for collecting junk. Now he receives a steady stream of letters and amazing finds from others like him from around the world.
"My favorite thing is when I get e-mail from people in Oklahoma or Manitoba," Rothbart says. "They're like, 'Everybody thinks I'm a freak here because I walk around picking up trash, but now I realize I'm not alone.'"
Of course, there are hazards to taking private treasures public, as when a discarded e-mail printout detailing a secretary's instructions to her temporary replacement on how to care for her boss made its way onto Found's website with names and addresses intact.
"She had things on there like, always a cup never a straw; crushed ice not cubed; make sure he eats lunch around 3," Rothbart says. "Apparently everybody at the office was looking at the note online. She was terrified he would see it. She kept calling and leaving me messages. I was in Honduras, so she thought I was snubbing her. Eventually, the note was taken down."
Clearly, the ethical implications of posting someone's personal notes and even phone numbers online are murky at best. Though for some, that's hardly an impediment. British artist Adele Prince unabashedly publishes phone numbers, full names and other telling details on her found art website.
"People take a risk when they are careless with personal information like a phone number," Prince says. "I think it's OK to take this information and put it in a different context such as a piece of art and trust that the viewer will see it as such."
An Oakland, California, psychotherapist says she became upset when the discarded diary of a San Francisco heroin addict was posted to the Internet by its discoverer.
"It's almost like a shortcut to creativity," the therapist says. "'I found this and now this has become my website.' That bugs me -- the sense of ownership. 'I own this story just because I found this journal on the street.' I felt like people were using the 'this is education' as an excuse for their voyeurism."
The diary, since taken offline, contained enough telling details -- including the author's boyfriend's full name and a scan of the cover -- to give its author away to people she might have known personally.
For collectors, the popularity of found objects has meant more competition among those who treasure them.
Babbette Heinz, whose large collection of found images fills the pages of Photobooth, says competition at flea markets has increased markedly in the past couple years. Prices for random photographs on eBay have shot through the roof -- once 10 or 25 cents apiece, bidding for a mid-century family photo album discovered at an estate sale starts at $9.99. Heinz says bids for found photo collections often go as high as $40.
Of course, some found-object collectors would snub their noses at paying for their booty. "There are some purists who say it has to be blowing down the street," says Rothbart. "Instead of drawing the line, I don't worry about the line. If it's some kind of note, you encounter it, and it gives you some kind of glimpse into someone, I consider it found."
