encode (2014)

“Encode” consists of a hacked fire alarm and images of newspaper printed on a stainless steel plate. The stainless steel plate is connected to the fire alarm through electrical wiring, which forms a closed circuit. The fire alarm plays percussive patterns that are essentially Morse code/Chinese Commercial code. These codes are derived from keywords from the popular Chinese social media blogging Weibo that has been censored by the government of the People’s Republic of China.