The accidental aesthetic of Quick Response (QR) codes has gained the attention of artsts looking to explore its vast storage capabilities and (smart phone) user-friendly scanning. A few QR artists have hung whole galleries, courting comparisons to Piet Mondrian. Another Dutch artist, Sander Veenhauf, is exploring less the aesthetic and more the code in the background. Splicing the technology with a 1970 cellular automaton called “Game of Life,” a zero-player game written by British mathematician John Horton Conway, Veenhauf’s QR or Life generates an infinite series of QR codes by repositioning the pixels based off Conway’s rules, which in turn transmit infinite hyperlinks. Just about none of the hyperlinks work, but when they do, QR or Life will record it. Given more accuracy, the program could be a poetic game-like thread through the world of hypertext. Give it a whirl: http://exvirtual.com/qr/.
Sander also adds that when adding a soundtrack, it becomes almost like an autonomous artwork or pixel performance.
[via Creative Applications]