LoVid
Issue 14 · Fall 2014
U R QR is a public intervention project by LoVid that took place in New York City in June 2013. U R QR unfolded in both public and internet spaces and networks.
The first part involved a public workshop designed as an immersive and participatory experience for 60 individuals. At the center of the workshop was the production of a series of portraits. For the portraits, the participant’s faces were painted with black and white patterns that corresponded to pieces of a collective QR code. Each individual’s face became one segment of the whole code pattern.
LoVid and their collaborating painters and photographers directed each participant through several interactive stations: face painting, photography, Morse code writing, journal entries on a paper Tumblr, and face cleaning. The participants engaged in conversations about secret languages, codes, and their personal identity within the context of our networked society.
The final QR representation was a digital assemblage of all the portraits into one QR code that was installed in a storefront on Front Street at South Street Seaport.
The QR code linked to a webpage with social media-derived documentation and recordings of the exchanges with U R QR participants, including their testimony and process during the event.
U R QR expands on LoVid’s ongoing interests in bridging tactile and mediated experiences as well as physical and virtual spaces. In blurring the boundaries between people, U R QR creates a crowdfaced information delivery system. This project was commissioned by Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) for River to River Festival.
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