Today I received an e-mail by the Spanish street art crew La Pluma Eléctri*k, who among other things makes QR code street art. Some of you will now think “Wow, how do they do that?” and the others will think “Heh?! What’s that?”. If you are in the latter case, I will explain QR for you:
QR means quick response and is a bare codes 2.0, which was created in 1994 in Japan with comercial purpuse. It’s a code that can decrypted using some special software, which is for example part of modern mobile phones. You take a picture and the program tells you what is inside the pixels.
La Pluma Eléctri*k started to use it with artistic purpuse in 2008…
“The message, is that there’s no message. Well, all of our QR says the same: I don’t understand anything. We thought that we had to anulate any message to convert the QR in art and not in any kind of publicity support.
The first reaction once you see QR for the First Time is: I don´t understand anything. Then, when you discover that there’s a secret message, you take a picture. And in the end, you realize that there isn’t any message that will save your life or sell you anything. You end in the beggining… As in the Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life…” (La Pluma Eléctri*k)
For me it sounds like an very interesting intention! For more info about La Pluma Eléctri*k and their QR artworks, you have to understand Spanish.