Scanning

A bar-code is a machine-readable representation of data relating to an object.
With the advance of database technologies, and high-speed networks, various types of information can be conveyed only by attaching bar-codes to the object.
However, the easiness to handle might sometime cause serious problem, such as mismatch of information.

In this installation, the bar-codes are attached to humans, and they cause mismatch of personal information. Bar-code readers (special optical scanners of bar-codes) were also used as a visual display of the information. As if the information scanned by the bar-code reader flew back to the world, the information was presented through an array of line images generated by the multiple readers.

Hideyuki Ando
Osaka University

Junji Watanabe
Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation, Communication Science Laboratories