Texted

Apqrt & 27778

These were created especially for Smartphone Art Show’s Interface || Interference. They are two different encodings of a text message based on the old-timey (yet not obsolete) dumb-phone method of text entry where CAT would be spelled by pressing the 2 key 3 times, pausing, pressing the 2 key twice, then pressing the 8 button once.

I couldn’t help but use my favorite stencil for the backgrounds.

Spoiler Alert

If you don’t want to take a few seconds to figure it out, the encoded message in both paintings is “the creative act is not performed by the artist alone”, an English translation of a Marcel Duchamp quote which speaks to the idea that the viewer must always decode what the artist is saying.