I only have my name? announcement 1999
What's behind names on the internet?
What''s communication on the net?
What's palpable of the personality behind the internet identity?
Who do you meet?

What's real, who is playing, who is talking, what mean the words, is it meant ironically?
Email correspondence is either very factual and business like or very emotional, misunderstandings and accidents appear very often.
On IRC it's worse. For me it often feels as if I am participating in a construction of a .log file (sometimes interesting), but I hardly ever have the feeling to really meet someone. IRC is reinforcing confusion and stimulates "play",

So, I would like to do the following experiment:

Thursday 6 of may 1999 at 14.00 h. central european time, there will be a "game" on IRC: Newnet.telia.NO channel: #pointproject

*is it possible to find out who's the real person out of four possible ones by asking questions via IRC during 15 minutes
 *is it possible to act as a person, one only knows via the net, and pass on IRC for that person during a 15 minutes of questions and answers? 
 *can people recognize me on IRC out of four possible persons (I  will answer all questions as honestly as possible) 

 participants:
-Annie Abrahams author of the website being human 
-three other people (members of http://lieudit.org)
 acting as Annie Abrahams 
-people in the Galleri Prosjekthallen, Trondheim, Norway
-people connected by IRC
-John Hopkins operator

what's happening:
-15 minutes questions and answers to four Annie's 
-after 15 minutes no more answers 
-voting for the real Annie via IRC and in Trondheim
-announcement of the result on IRC 
-Annie chosen reveals her/his real identity 

-report of the project on the web afterwards 
I started "being human" (beginning of 1998) with the idea that the web was a possibility to contact individual persons in there own context behind their computers.
I asked myself: "about what and how can I talk to them?" About non-identary subjects in colors, words and fast loading .gif's.
Some time ago I wanted to make more room for the visitors and I decided to put on line a wishing service. I guard wishes, people send me, and form them in html and javascript. In this forming I reveal a bit of my personality.
I thank Kjell Hansson and Henrik Ahlberg, students of the Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki, Finland and authors of the pointproject, for making it possible to execute this experiment
If you are interested go on IRC: Newnet.telia.NO channel: #pointproject at 14.00 h the 6th of may, try to find out which of the annie's is me. If you have any questions or remarks you can contact me bram.orgarobasgmaildotcom 
ps. my hypothesis is that you cannot sort me out

please smile to your neighbour in the morning

 

Report of the Experience - logfile, réactions, comments

It was a very confusing experience. It's only words, but?
In real life I have the feeling, that the only thing of me that will never change is my name.
In this project I shared this never changing element with others, so maybe for the first time I was confronted with the abyss of self.

Comment= In this experiment Abrahams tried to answer a number of questions, such as 'What is palpable of the personality behind the internet identity?', testing recognition and sincerity, what is real and what is not, in environments like IRC (Internet Relay Chat) channels.
Using fifteen-minute question-and-answer sessions, she tried to establish if people could recognize her, out of four users called Annie. The results suggest that normal aspects of subjectivity, such as personality and opinions, become neutralized in many online venues.
Rachel Green in her book "Internet Art", Thames &Hudson, 2004, pg 92-93. ISBN 0-500-20376-8.

Back in 1999, in her live work "I Only Have My Name" (1999), part of a superproject called "Being Human" (1997–2007), Annie Abrahams entered an IRC chat room with three other users who took her name (becoming “anniea,” “annieb,” “anniec,” and “annied”); they let Trondheim gallerygoers join the chat, and gave them 15 minutes to figure out which “annie” was Abrahams. But soon the conversation grew hectic, sexual, and weird; one user, “jaceee,” became “annieg” then “lucifer” then “annief.” Abrahams worried that the experiment suggested that the web was epistemological poison: “It would be dangerous,” she later wrote, “for me to continue this ‘play’ (in fact it would mean making a concept of myself).
"What Is Internet Art Actually Doing? On Omar Kholeif’s “Internet_Art”"" by Cal Revely-Calder in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Nov. 11, 2023.

In ‘I only have my name,’ around halfway through the exercise, many of the Annies decide to become Lucifers, saying that “they cannot stay annie for ages.” Annief becomes just lucifer, annieg becomes LuciferFt. Jaceee becomes LuciferQ. This redefinition of character reflects the chaos developing within the piece’s narrative, as trying to discern identity becomes increasingly difficult.
Francis Rust in Anonymity in Cyberspace: Born-Digital Gender and Perceived Authenticity in Dennis Cooper’s ‘The Sluts’ (2004) and Annie Abrahams’ ‘I only have my name?’ (1999), originally broadcasted in Dublin Digital Radio’s ‘Queering the Airwaves’ series in June 2025.