Tuesday 1 July 2014

QR code curtains at Digital Encounters


 
The two curtains I’m exhibiting in the Digital Encounters exhibition are titled ‘Insider information’ and ‘Unheeded warning’. They both incorporate stitched QR codes that can be read with smart phones to reveal warning messages. The QR code on Insider information says ‘Escape while you can’ and combined with the words ‘Help me’ stitched in human hair suggests the homely is becoming unhomely. The QR code on Unheeded warning says ‘I warned you’ and is combined with a tear in the curtain suggesting all is not as it should be. I developed the idea of using QR codes when I was looking for a way of coding information in a decorative way. The aim was to hide the information in plain view so that it could easily be overlooked. Previously I had used lettering hidden within lace patterns but I found that I could include more information within the QR code. I tried making them with bobbin lace but found that cross stitch on even weave canvas was more accurate and therefore easier for the smart phone to detect. The two curtains form a domestic narrative and the viewer is left to piece together the clues to discover the hidden story.

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