A QR on Mars

By Andres Lopera | ALArte | 27 May 2022

A QR code (for its acronym in English Quick Response) in addition to being a digital tool is also an aesthetic fact.

To generate and interpret a QR, the intervention of an appendix is necessary. The device must be well pointed framing the drawing, have a minimum of sharpness and Internet connection. Today it is an increasingly used tool with various objectives. But, exhibiting a QR of a Bitcoin address in a gallery constitutes a declaration of individual sovereignty.

QR drawing of a Bitcoin address. Andres Lopera.

Bitcoin is a simple idea, so simple that a culture can be built on it. Decentralization, Security, Scalability are the basic trilemma defined by game dynamics. Mutual rewards and associations, according to the individuals themselves, with a solid base of exchange.

As a drawing, the image is conditioned by technology. In a QR, the black and white spaces lead to other virtual spaces that we cannot humanly interpret.

However, made by hand, it is a look of the human being on himself, a mirror without facial features.

Furthermore, the idea of something (a code) that takes or grants access to “somewhere else” is not new and may accelerate its adoption.

Could the drawing of a QR forgotten in time be considered a cult object?

What could an explorer astronaut, an "Anthropologist on Mars", say if he found something like a QR, drawn in one of his caves?