A cookie, also known as a web cookie, browser cookie, and HTTP cookie, is a piece of text stored by a user’s web browser. A cookie can be used for authentication, storing site preferences, shopping cart contents, the identifier for a server-based session, or anything else that can be accomplished through storing text data.
Cookies may be set by the server with or without an expiration date. Cookies without an expiration date exist until the browser terminates, while cookies with an expiration date may be stored by the browser until the expiration date passes.* (*from wikipedia)
Cookie portraits are numbered portraits I send visitors for free every time they visit my website. This work is based on the same cookie technology that is usually used by big commercial websites such as Amazon to monitor the choices made by users on their websites and to present product suggestions. With the help of this technology, my portraits record the workstation environment settings of the connected user, sending him a very slim TEXT file containing information about his operative system, ports, kind of browser and a sentence with the explication of the project and a progressive number. This work speculates on the role of the online market and the possible distinctions between a man and a shopping cart.
 

How to get your cookie portrait

The 2011 cookie has been set to expire in one week after receiving it. So if you want to save it follow these info:

The easiest way to collect your cookie (except than copying the online text generated at the website when you visit the project homepage at http://localhost/zanni.org/cookieproject/default.aspx ) is to use Explorer. It stores cookies as text files in a directory called COOKIE under Windows.
Opera has a cookies4.dat file. With Firefox 3.0 and SeaMonkey 2.0 the cookie information is stored in the files cookies.sqlite and permissions.sqlite. In Firefox 2 or below and Mozilla Suite/SeaMonkey 1.x, cookies are stored in the
cookies.txt file and cookie site permissions are stored in the hostperm.1 file. That SQLite file cannot be read with a normal text editor as it is a mini database (SQLite). You can use sqlite-manager (“https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/sqlite-manager/”)

2011 cookie text

Serial No: 723,

About this project: The artwork stored in your computer is a numbered NewNewPortrait by Carlo Zanni. Cookie Portrait was created in 2002 and after several years of silence it starts again in 2011. The container of the portrait is a cookie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_cookie). It is a portrait of one of your temporary mental identities. It represents the general state of your WorkStation and its environment.

-No feedback has been sent back to the server to monitor your activities. This cookie is just one way-

The artwork is unique, free and personal. It contains a progressive serial number and some settings of your computer in the moment you are surfing.

The cookie expires in one week after receiving it. To preserve it you have to save a copy in a new directory. You can also print it, frame it and hang it on a wall.

The artwork is the file, so you can visualize it as you prefer.

Thank you.
Carlo Zanni, 2011
www.zanni.org
 

code by Robert York