Luther Blissett

Luther Blissett is a multiple-use name, an “open reputation” informally adopted and shared by hundreds of artists and social activists all over Europe and South America since 1994.

On the Usenet, the first reference to the Luther Blissett Project appeared on 7 November 1994. It was a trumped-up report on alleged uses of the multiple name all over the world, and—albeit written in a somewhat clumsy English—it was posted by a “Luther Blissett” from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

For reasons that remain unknown, the name was borrowed from a 1980s English football player of Afro-Caribbean origins.

In Italy, between 1994 and 1999, the Luther Blissett Project (an organized network within the open community sharing the “Luther Blissett” identity) became an extremely popular phenomenon. Blissett was also active in other countries, especially in Spain and Germany.

December 1999 marked the end of the LBP’s Five Year Plan. All the “veterans” committed a symbolic Seppuku.