El Pueblo also known as The Town - Calligram
(2022)
Video, 01min 32sec
The post-digital landscape is already here. It surrounds us in the ether, but not as one would expect. Our post-digital landscape is the infrastructure of the internet, the embedded coded information and the mechanisms of engagement and communication (the QR code, the mobile phone, the digital image).
“El Pueblo, also known as The Town (Calligram)” (2021) describes the institutions that govern much of Western existence. The presence of these places can be felt in every town. They are some of the first words we learn as children: The Street, The School, The Monument, The Home, The Church, The Cell, The Bridge, The Boarder. These places are politically and socially charged with a conceptual meaning far deeper than their short names indicate. Drawing inspiration from the format of a language class, “El Pueblo” places multiple layers of representation adjacent to one another. Human voices are situated next to written words and QR codes connected to Wikipedia. Rather than a pictorial landscape, the QR code provides both image and text describing each place and their definition. Humans learn about, create, and experience their landscapes through these coded structures, and the internet symbolizes the new frontier in the representation of our world. The full extent of this artwork is only possible with the mechanisms of technology and the internet.