QR codes have become a familiar aspect of communication that is embedded in the urban spaces that most people experience every day, but can the facial orientation of QR codes be used to educate, foster empathy, and build a greater sense of culture through the disarming nature of play?

This question takes the notion of making the invisible visible in everyday life and asks if that can be accomplished in a socially effective way that is similar to Maori Moko facial tattooing, yet with use of digital scanning technology that is readily available on every mobile device. Designer Stefan Sagmeister presented Lou Reed in a gritty fashion along these lines to great effect, and artist Hank Willis Thomas has shown that branding bodies in a permanent fashion can dangerously affect the historical and cultural “interpretation of reality” as a corollary. However, presenting underrepresented stories utilizing QR codes may offer the opportunity to disrupt systems of social hierarchy and equalize personal experience. It is said that ordinary practitioners of a city live “below the threshold at which visibility begins”, but I will blur that threshold through my work and create the opportunity for greater identity to begin to be made visible.

Creating these opportunities through the presentation of a QR code-based identity game in the gallery space will challenge participants' notions of Self and Other through the power of digitally embedded vernacular communication.

Ages 12 and up - mobile device required

Pre-orders available during the exhibition at

whodoyouthinkqr.com