Challenge

I wanted a personal project that pushed both my technical and creative sides — something that blended:

• physical craft (paint)
• digital behavior (QR codes)
• participatory interaction (users wandering a city)
• and a sense of playful curiosity

I had never painted, despite my fine arts education. My background was in technology-first art — video, experimental audio, installation. Painting was an unfamiliar medium, which made it the perfect one to explore.

The questions I wanted to answer:

• How much can a QR code be visually manipulated before error correction fails?
• What if a painting could send someone on an adventure?
• Would people scan something in an unexpected, non-marketing context?
• Could painted QR codes become an entry point to collective creativity?

Some of these curiosities were validated.

Others failed spectacularly.

All of them taught me something.

Solution

Painted QR codes as interactive triggers

I dove into the anatomy of QR codes — their error-correction structure, pixel logic, scan tolerances — while also learning how paint behaves.

I painted QR codes by hand, testing:

• Levels of error correction
• color variance
• intentional distortion
• and environmental factors like glare

(I learned the hard way that placing a painting in a sunny window makes scanning nearly impossible.)

Building Depiction: QR-powered community photo albums

To turn these experiments into an experience, I created a system where:

1. A user scanned a painted QR code on a storefront or building.
2. The code led them to map-based walking instructions.
3. Each location (“pin”) had a new QR code.
4. That QR prompted them to shoot a creative photograph.
5. The photo uploaded automatically to my website as part of a public gallery, paired with its geographic pin.
6. Participants’ images created a collective portrait of a shared place, even when taken at different times.

This was Depiction: Durham (2011) and later Depiction: Chapel Hill (2012).

When technology lagged behind the art

This work existed in a world where:

• people rarely recognized QR codes
• phone cameras didn’t auto-detect them
• QR generators only produced black-and-white squares
• scanning apps were clunky
• most users couldn’t attach a photo to an email on mobile (really!)

Engagement wasn’t what I hoped.

People often didn’t understand what to do.

So for the 2012 installation, I hired a developer to build a custom mobile app that:

• explained how to scan using the app
• managed the walking navigation
• automated photo upload
• and removed the friction that users couldn’t resolve on their own

It was UX design disguised as art — or art disguised as UX.

Outcome

Creating connections among strangers

Despite the engagement challenges, the participants who did explore the system created something beautiful:
a collaborative, site-specific photo album curated by the paths their QR scans revealed.

People photographed:

• alley textures
• architectural angles
• shadows on pavement
• found objects
• overlooked micro-details
• and each other

Those images lived together on my website, forming community connections between strangers who never met in person.

Evolving into STEAM installations

After several years of QR code experimentation, I pivoted toward painting musical data and building noise-making installations that invited users to touch, play, and experiment. These works appealed to STEAM audiences and removed reliance on external tech like scanning apps.

Residency

A successful 2018 installation in Durham led to an invitation in 2019 to serve as an artist-in-residence, where I lived inside Elsewhere Museum for a month while building a hybrid analog–electronic noise installation using harvested components of other artworks.

This arc — from painted QR codes to sound installations — remains central to my creative journey.

Role & What Grew From It

I handled every part of this work: QR experimentation, painting, interaction design, website building, commissioning custom app development, fabricating installations, and developing electronics-based STEAM pieces.

Working independently taught me how people engage with unfamiliar technology in the wild and how to design experiences that balance curiosity, clarity, and accessibility. This exploratory path became the foundation for my later STEAM installations and directly contributed to my 2019 museum residency.