Brevity is the Soul of Lingerie

by Steve Elliott

The rich tapestry of The American Experiment reveals a dynamic tension between freedom and control, between chaos and order. The result is the restless, exhilarating vibrancy that is so characteristically American. Selected American texts celebrate the many threads of our culture, a collective work of the imagination whose making never ends. They are a rich source of inspiration, presented as Quick Response Codes. To balance the rationality of text and code, QR colors are based on random numbers, and figure/ground ambiguity may intrude. The two facets are occasionally linked by substitution ciphers which reference the text but are not directly intelligible. The images are not usually comprehensible from a purely visual standpoint; reference to the source text is essential. The challenge is how to bridge the possibly fundamental incompatibility of words and art, to integrate textual meaning and visual impact, while celebrating The Americans.