Thirst for freedom. Country of Barcodes in contemporary art

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

For some time now, every thing in the world has its own name and a special passport. But it is not so easy to pronounce these names aloud, and you can see the passports only with laser eyes. Because they are depicted with bar code … By creating barcodes, we gave things a soul - but why is this soul so similar to prison bars? Most interesting paintings and art from the mysterious and frightening Barcode Countries - in this review.

Oppression

Why immediately - frightening? What's wrong with a common trademark that just encodes manufacturer's data? Artists know that from the very first days of its existence, the barcode has become a symbol. A symbol of the commodity, very material world.

In any other environment, this would not have caused any outrage. But not among people of art! Free peoplefor whom creativity is a piece of bread, and disorder is their native element, they dislike the rough and the material, and deep down they despise the mining craving for comfort.

And even from an aesthetic point of view, this sign is rude. He, of course, is not devoid of grace - but this cruel harmony … Harmony that does not leave the world with much choice: either black, or white, or you are not needed. To some, the barcode looks like a zebra, but to most it resembles the good old prison bars … Smooth and beautiful, in the Art Nouveau style - but that makes it even more terrible than rotten rusty rods on the windows of prisons of the past.

The escape

Unsurprisingly, any use of a barcode in art is an extra layer of meaning. American flag - not art yet. The same flag made from a barcode is a bright and uncompromising challenge to the American consumer machine, a huge meat grinder that grinds and grinds human mince, like in a Pinkfloyd movie. The wall.

Attaching a barcode to some subcultural fetish, for example, a branded punk mohawk, is to laugh at the posers who massively join the ranks of the subculture during the "fashion trend" and just as rapidly pour back in a couple of years. Why? because riot is not possible under the barcode … It is only possible against barcodes.

And therefore, the sincere desire of all rebels, free artists, fighters against the system and friends of freedom - break the bars! Variations on this theme are countless in art. Several times I even happened to see products whose "barcode" turned out to be a logo on which people escape from a striped cage. However, the art of creating barcodes is a separate big topic.

Silent victory

But there is another way - the slow road of reconciliation of the machine, capitalist and commodity civilization with the world of living nature and living feelings. Have people stopped loving because they have a mobile connection? Has it stopped raining because we have plastic raincoats, and the sun has stopped shining because we have invented solar panels?

Ultimately, reconciliation is still possible. Sooner or later, the world of human creations will cease to be so primitive and cruel - it will be as simple and majestic as a river, like the sun, like a waterfall.

And then the machine will acquire human vision, and the Country of Barcodes will cease to be a black-and-white prison: the strip code will turn into a color symbol of peace. A world of different possibilities, different tastes, different people - the world of freedom.