BARCODE_Association2018

Fontanabuona Slate
30.7/29.7/3.1 cm
steel strips 3 mm thick

Based on a find, the fragment of a slate relief, the surface of which shows a milled structure consisting of parallel lineatures that evoke a bar code.

A selected section of the slate now serves as a template for a converted photograph, which is placed in the sculpturally recessed field and serves as a trompe-l'œil, it manifests a barcode. An attempt to read it optoelectronically would be doomed to failure.

A closer look reveals it to be a it turns out to be a forgery, due to a lack of precision, overlengths and by impossible bar width combinations. A barcode serves to uniquely identify the thing marked with it.

A work of art such as this one is unique due to its origin and unique due to its origin and nature. In a playful way the work confronts two spheres that could not be more opposite: Industrialized world of goods and the freest art, which even involves chance in its calculus.