Photograph
Start with photos of tag style graffiti.
A study of marks made by humans
Other
Codes
A study of marks made by humans.
We live in an ecosystem full of ducks, pigeons, foxes, humans, rodents, and other mammals. Grass pushes through the cracks in concrete. Animals leave marks. Some are lasting and some are ephemeral. Some are sanctioned and some are just suggestions.
Notes
Common marks.
The human ecosystem is full of things to be curious about. Signs, scratches, symbols, labels, warnings, patterns, and other traces of human expression.
Other Codes looks at marks made by humans as part of the environment around us. Some are recent. Some belong to older traditions of marking, drawing and writing, with an interest in the endless forms and motifs that appear.
Method
From patterns to understanding.
The method is practical. Photographs of marks in the environment are studied to understand the variation in their forms.
Mask
Separate the mark from the background.
Vectorise
Create raster and vector outputs that can be studied.
Explore
Use plots, PCA and dendrograms to explore relationships between forms.
Scope
Looking at what is already there.
The street is full of marks that usually pass without much attention.
We treat those marks as visual material: something that can be photographed, processed, compared, and looked at more carefully.
Working version
This is the first version.
The pipeline already works. The app and web app are still being built.
Segmentation
Vectors
Rasters
PCA
Dendrograms