Pattern Recognition
For linking vessels to narratives, what could be more apt than a QR code?
A whole website’s worth of stories, contained in a black/white graphic pattern.
And what a pattern it is! My alternate title for this piece is The Little Chanel Suit. I wished to call attention to the scintillating visual quality of the QR code: a textured weave of black and white.
Yet we largely ignore/dismiss the “look” of the QR code — because we cannot read it. Its meaning is meant to be deciphered through technology.
The hand work of putting a functional code on vessels was challenging: sometimes successful, sometimes not accurate enough. Hence the title: Pattern Recognition. Sometimes the code is recognized by technology, sometimes not.
To disrupt our automatic visual dismissal — to get viewers to really look — I fragmented the code on one plate and all the cups. Lifting fragments from the overall pattern reveals exciting snippets of spatial divisions. While creating these fragments, I thought about ancient shards with cuneiform and how scholars today struggle to decipher them. The day after I finished this piece, the NewYork Times reported that AI is making great progress decoding cuneiform.
I am showing this piece with a vitrified porcelain stand but with the porcelain plates and cups in their bisque state. This gives me the look I want for the sculptural statement. How ironic to make porcelain more fragile than it already is! But also, how permanent or fugitive might our websites and QR codes prove?