Overview 
This project explores “personal simulacra” in the digital age: how a person can be represented—and effectively replaced—by machine-readable data. Using code systems (e.g., QR codes and barcodes), I constructed a portrait with no direct human likeness. The work asks what happens to identity and trust when systems recognize us primarily as entries, labels, and numbers.

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Project Facts
Role: Artist / concept + production (solo)
Team: Individual project
Context: Theory-driven visual artwork on personal simulacra and coded identity
Tools: Generated codes (QR codes, barcodes, and other code formats); digital composition and printing
Outputs: Code-based “portrait” installation/artwork; viewer interaction triggered by smartphone cameras

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The UX Question
How might we make viewers feel how identity becomes legible to machines but less legible to humans?
How do we surface the moment when a system “recognizes” the work before a person fully understands it?

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Audience & Journey
Visitors first see a field of codes that reads as image, not as a face.
They try to interpret it visually, then notice it behaves differently under a phone camera.
Some visitors discovered that when they photographed the work, their phone camera automatically scanned the codes and prompted them to open corresponding webpages.
They leave with an unsettling shift: the piece becomes more “active” and meaningful to a device than to a human viewer at first glance.

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Key Design Decisions

• Removed human likeness to avoid familiar portrait cues and force interpretation through systems language.

• Used multiple code formats to represent identity as machine-readable symbols rather than narrative.

• Designed the work to be visually coherent as an image while remaining functionally scannable.

• Leveraged smartphone auto-scanning as an unplanned-but-revealing interaction: the device interprets first, then the viewer.

• Kept meaning partially withheld unless mediated by a tool, emphasizing trust and dependency in perception.

• Framed the work as “personal simulacra”: identity compressed into labels, records, and numbers.

 

Build / Prototype / Iterate
I generated multiple categories of codes and encoded different kinds of information, then composed them into a unified visual field that can be read both as an image and as a scannable system. I tested readability, scan reliability, and how quickly viewers notice the device-driven interaction.

• Generate and encode multiple code types (QR, barcodes, etc.).

• Compose and print variations to balance image coherence with scan reliability.

• Test with smartphone cameras to confirm automatic scanning prompts and link behavior.

• Adjust density, contrast, and layout to reduce scan errors and improve the “reveal” moment.

 

Outcome
The work shifts attention from human recognition to machine recognition: viewers confront a portrait that becomes “legible” through systems rather than faces.