What was once thought of as a fickle fad has now become a full-fledged phenomenon. Street art has been gaining momentum for some time. Artists would be hard pressed to find a better venue than public sidewalks and the sides of buildings, which can carry their messages far and wide. The Free Art and Technology Lab (FAT), an organization that seeks to enhance the public domain through various applications of media, have taken a particular interest in street art and have produced a new product, which they are using to spread their “open sourced” message.
Dubbed the QR_STENCILER, the new utility program from FAT solves a problem that once kept the codes out of the realm of street art. QR codes are made up of tiny blocks which contain the content linked to the codes. A QR scanner has to be able to distinguish the pattern of the codes before it can decipher their meaning. Given the nature of stencils, many artists have had trouble using the codes because the stenciling process makes the blocks much less distinguishable.
The QR_STENCILER automatically detects the pattern of the code it is supplied with and then coverts it into a vector stencil using laser cutting. The blocks of the pattern are held in place by thin lines of material, allowing code scanners to pick up on the pattern without interference.
Currently, the software is only available for the MacOSX 10 platform and is licensed under a Creative Commons copyright.
