Musical Codes/
I found qr codes about a year ago and became fascinated with them. I find them aesthetically pleasing as well. In their ability to be both pretty and useful in a secret way they are both present and hidden, much like most of modern icons, symbolism and targeted branding.
I decided to make my own qrcode generator web application because the ones that I came across were corporate applications that interfered and hindered the inherent subversive potential of the visual device.Most important to me in the creation of this project was exposure. I wanted to introduce the potential of physical hyperlinks as a new medium for the other artists in my grad class at PNCA. I had previously been trying to explain the importance of interaction design as medium for visual work and I felt that that discussion was too opaque. Using qrcodes as a vehicle for discussion made the action and opportunity visible.
Through the immediacy of the qr code I could describe and re-enact a means for viewers to engage with the potential of the medium. I make no claims that qrcodes are a glorious medium, I think in fact that they are quaint and somewhat limited. But they are succesful in acting as instigators and they are free and easy to use for artists, hackers and kids.
Their potential utility is described in an essay I wrote called "If Your Cellphone Is Ringing You Are Dead"My personal projects with the codes have been ongoing. I have used them exclusively for fun so far but also I wanted to sum up an exercise that exemplified the psycho-social utility of the codes. I am fascinated by annotated space, outsourced cultural memory, activity theory and kinesthetics and I think that the use of physical hyperlinks approach these inherently. In an increasingly complicated and digitally layered social space how does memory serve us?
For the visual mixtape project I made a set of 14 qr codes with this qr code generator on this website. Placed around Portland, Oregon each qr code links to a song from a favorite album. The codes describe a visual mixtape that is dispersed throughout the urban environment. Each qr code is placed in the location where I first heard the song. In addition, I am creating a book of all the codes.Including documentary photographs of the codes in situ in Portland, the book will act as a mixtape and public emotional social-storage unit. Instead of handing out mixtapes that could degrade or get lost or damaged--plus rarely does one encounter a tape player anymore--I present for the mixtape listener a book. Comprised of the coded songs and pictures of the songs as physical hyperlinks in the real-world environment the book is a sound collage, a documentary catalog of the piece, and the first machine-readable visual mixtape. Viewers can "read" the book with their eyes, their ears, or their phones.
Make your visual mixtape: