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Introduction
In the summer of 1994, a group of Italian activists began using the name 'Luther Blissett' to author a variety of interventions in public space and in the media. The idea was simple: anyone could become Luther Blissett by simply adopting the name. As a result, in the following years the nom de plume was shared by dozens of activists and artists to dupe the press into reporting non-events, hijack popular TV programs, sell apocryphal manuscripts to publishers, conduct psychogeographic experiments, fabricate artists and artworks, author best-selling novels, and much more. Meant to function as 'an open reputation' and a 'multiple-use name', Luther Blissett spread in the following years to other European countries, North America and South America and is still used occasionally by media pranksters, writers, artists and activists (Deseriis, 2011).
Luther Blissett is a recent example of what I call an 'improper name', which I define as the adoption of the same pseudonym by organized collectives, affinity groups and individual authors. Although collective pseudonyms preexist modern times, it is only with the diffusion of modern media that their circulation in the public sphere set in motion idiosyncratic and unforeseen appropriations. In this respect, if collective pseudonyms imply some form of coordination among users of the same alias, media circulation detaches the name-signature from the conditions of its production and intention of its users. If this is true, as Derrida (1991) notes, of every signature, it is particularly true of aliases that are explicitly designed to be appropriated by third parties and whose uses cannot be controlled by their creators. In addition to Luther Blissett, multiple-use names - a term that emphasizes a decentralized and possibly uncoordinated use of an alias - include Monty Cantsin and Karen Eliot, two pseudonyms created by North American and British mail artists to author their mailings, performances and music in the late 1970s to early 1980s; and Anonymous, a handle currently shared by hundreds of hackers and activists to protect freedom of speech and reclaim unrestrained access to information and information technologies.
Although improper names - an umbrella term that encompasses both collective pseudonyms and multiple-use names - can be created in different socioeconomic and cultural contexts, I maintain that they share three common features and functions: