Pattern Recognition is a media-art project collaboration between artists Vicki Smith (Harihari / S.V.Kiritea) and Aroha Timoti-Coxon (Hokitika, Te Runaka o Makaawhio, Ngati Waewae, Ngai Tahu) funded by the Intercreate Research Centre. http://www.intercreate.org/pattern_recognition/
Pattern Recognition is a work that combines the kaupapa of tukutuku with that of the QR code. They both are patterns that tell stories that can be ‘decoded’ by those who are able to appreciate them. Tukutuku in creation is a conversation and the finished product holds coded information in the form of patterns that are recognisable motifs telling stories for those who understand what they represent.
A QR code (quick response code) is a type of 2D bar code used to provide access to information through a mobile phone or tablet device (a reader is required to decode them). QR codes can open files or perform an action such as lead to a website.
The final result resembles tukutuku in the usual manner of their construction but is accessible in the same way QR codes are (through scanning software). Pattern Recognition seeks to realise an aspect of the conversation around traditional craft practices that include within them the space for discussion, idea generation and collective knowledge making through the shared process of construction.
The digital world is made up of the on/off binary code as is weaving, Pattern Recognition references this and the world wide web as the biggest repository of ‘woven information’ [Tukutuku-Ao-Whanui]. The work hangs within and opens the front pages of the Westland Library website.
