Blocked Connections

Using visual QR codes embedded into combinations of traditional quilt blocks drawing on piecing and applique, the reader will discover fragments of a quilter’s story using any QR-reader capable smart phone. The primary object of installation is an original quilt, designed using high-contrast panels of fabric to allow the QR reader to decode additional meaning in what will appear to the human eye as an abstract piece steeped in traditions of pieced and quilted textile art. This installation thus combines two traditions of meaning: one analog, the language and traditions of quilt blocks, and one digital, the interconnected hypertext trails of communication unlocked through finding the QR codes. By providing a tangible interface to a re-imagined, oft-forgotten, and somewhat "broken" era of the web, the quilt tells the story of its imagined creator, a quilter working during the “early” days of the web in 1999. The narrative draws on connections made at a distance, and is told through sites that recall the aesthetics and networks of the time (primarily LiveJournal, Webrings, and Geocities) while using one of the earliest mechanisms of “augmented” reality. These fragmented elements capture the sense of embedding one’s self into crafts both digital and tactile, and leaving behind a record of one’s passing through threads whose knots can never truly be unraveled.