Running With Scissors: Berlin continued

I thought the last post was long enough, so here's part 2...

Welt Aus Schrift: (site)

What can i say... it was large format posters.. most litho printed or screen printed and it was beautiful.. seeing posters from the the late 1800's and their modern day descendants, theres still no substitute for having your work printed, in context and off the computer screen! The scale actually made some the pieces more eye catching, whether they were large posters or small paper bags... theres just something about being able to see the print method used on a piece.. seeing over lap, mistakes and the thickness of the ink. James Corazzo actually pointed this out after buying the exhibition book and flaunting it around the breakfast table the next day... a reproduction/photograph never looks the same as the original and that certainly held true with some posters featured!

Film Archive:

I passed up a studio visit to go see the film archive, clear on the other side of Berlin, with the moving image students one day. Admittedly, a lot of the things they were getting excited over didnt really interest me as much (such as shelf after shelf full of cine films... just stacked in tins, and old film and tv cameras.. the kind you see Jack Black running around with in the King Kong remake) but what did appeal to me was the production/concept illustrations and a few of the props featured from films such as Hook, Gremlins and the original King Kong... i only hope in years to come, people look back on our generations and still say we have as much technical skill and expertise as some of the artists work we saw that day...

Other nice bits:

My BurgerKing cup from JohnLennon Airport... funky illustration... (360 wrap around.. wink wink)

Almost every lamp post or whatever is covered in stickers/posters/flyers...

So I added some of my own (with a little help from my old friend )

SWEZA:
whilst travelling and walking down to meet my friend, I passed a few sights that I took pics of.. i was looking for more stickers/posters to snap. I decided to stop and take these pics.. purely out of curiosity and annoyance.. now i knew roughly what they were but not how they work so i wanted to test them when i got back home. I have now learnt that these QR codes are just like barcodes... only instead of a laser to scan them, you use a 3G mobile device and relevant app to read the information contained within them... you can store basic information within the code.. such as contact details (name, no, address) or like in the case of the artist who posted these.. his URL to the site explaining what he was doing an why...

my picture..

the decode:
http://sweza.com/stromkasten.html

my picture:

the decode:

http://www.sweza.com/sesame.html

this second image shows the door actually opened... as if by followin the link/curiosity ... you have been granted the privilege to see on the other side of the door. Similarly, the first shot shows the electrical box thing toppled over, yet in my image it is upright which leads me to think the artist has set up the box their selves, hence why it is taped/held against the fence! its a sort of consequences of your actions.. or i like to see it more as a reward for your curiosity!!! after following the URL's, if you click the image itself.. you are taken the the main site.

stolen words:

I am using QR Codes to preserve graffiti for posterity by photographing the graffiti before it is removed. After the graffiti has been cleaned off by the local authorities or building owners i place a QR Code in the exact location which resolves to an image of the original. In that way a mobile phone with a QR-Code Reader can be used to travel back in time.

stolen video:

This Berlin based artist seems like the kind of person I actually aspire to me like, creating characters and introducing them around the city and also placing curiosity inducing pieces that make people stop and engage them.

characters: http://sweza.com/ubos/

interventions: http://sweza.com/interventions/

I've briefly played with the free QR code generators online to put my own URL into one of these funky squares.. and thought i could maybe tag work with them instead of signing them with my own name.. after all I do want some form of anonymity.. and I have literally this second devised a way in which I could abuse the use of hiding address in them.. when thinking of projects like Geo-Tagging scavenger hunts and or graffiti artist Space Invader, they both lead the audience on a journey around a city/environment... following clues or just hunting for these signs. In the case of Space Invader, the reward is seeing these mosaic creations of his hidden at various heights and at varying scales... you feel like you've actually stumbled upon them when you find them (unless you have the map!)... but for example, I could start with one obvious QR code in a primary position... and it has the address of the next location for a QR code in it.. there you follow these addresses to find the next clue along the chain.. (depending on where I put them.. I could hide some of shop shutters... that way you can only view soem clues at certain times!)... but what could the reward be at the end? I imagine it would have to be a URL featuring an image of some sort.. somethign that would make people want to track them all down.. maybe turn it into a game of hide and seek? or a lost and found.. as if a baby creature is lost and needs to follow the addresses to reach home??? as i said, i have JUST thought about it.. so bare with me! :P

my URL QR...

qrcode