Portfolio of work relevant to Hacktory A.I.R. Application

I work primarily in painting, critical writing, and as an independent exhibit organizer. What unites these different forms of creative research is an interest in the use and function of written language. I have a long involvement in the use of encryption and steganography in my work, and have explored a number of script systems that allow me to conceal messages in images. As a resident artist at the Hacktory, I would like to explore the uses of programming languages and syntax and add these to my 'vocabulary'.

Below is a portfolio of five works that employ codes in various forms. The indicate the rigor of my work, and suggest the thoroughness with which I would apply myself to the opportunity. However, I am not interested in using this opportunity to display language, I am interested in use it to explore the possibilities of employing it to shape a work I have not yet conceived. In this, I am very interested in the language operations of experimental writers from the Oulipo and in the work of Kenneth Goldsmith.

Impossible Book: Principles of American Military Financial Planning (with Mary Beth Brown), 2014, commercially printed counterfeit credit card, edition of 250,  2 1/8 x 3 3/8. This impossible text book deals with the way the United States Congress paid for wars from the 18th- to the 20th-century. Hidden in the sixteen-digit account number are the dates of four major wars; the four-digit security code (1964) marks the year Congress gave the President a 'blank check' to conduct the war in Vietnam.

Impossible Textbook: Four paradigms of Cold War Power (with Mary Beth Brown), 2014, 3D printed ABS plastic, wood, and paper. 6 x 6 x 6 in. This piece is an attempt to produce a low-cost text book that would be useful in a freshmen American history course. The text is printed on eight pyramids that a reader could print from a 3D printer. The book is 'read' like puzzle, by arranging the forms in a laser-cut wooded frame until they describe four metaphors of US-Soviet relations from 1945-1987.

You will forget all the sounds and images, 2013-14, acrylic on canvas. 48 x 48 in. This painting utilizes a tumbling block pattern and maritime signal flags, unlike much of my work, I composed the encoded text in this image in response to the constraint of having three faces of the cube available. 

Blessed are all metrical rules (After Auden), 2012, gouache on paper 22 x 30 in. This image, like a great deal of my work, employs stolen language - in this case a passage by the poet W.H. Auden that praises the use of compositional constraints. The code is challenging to read in part because only one color 'channel' is rendered.

The Recognitions (Umberto Eco), 2009, gouache on paper, 30 x 22 in. This is one drawing from a large series of stolen self-portraits. As I come across words and ideas I closely identify with in my reading, I add them to The Recognitions. In this image, a passage from an essay by Eco describing the way ancient Egyptian scribes employed hieroglyphics to send secret messages alongside ordinary message is encoded in Braille dots - each pixel of the digital photo is replaced by a part of a Braille character.