Are you human? / CAPTCHAs in Real Life

You probably had to enter it somewhere on a website already; a CAPTCHA code.

A random string of awkwardly placed numbers and characters, to be recognized and entered to verify you really are human. Architect Aram Bartholl (DE) places CAPTCHA codes as tags in the public space. Their strange art of writing makes sure the codes blend in the street view unnoticed.

German artist Aram Bartholl often juxtaposes online life with real life, as seen in his giant Google Maps indicators and actualization of World of Warcraft avatars. One of his recent projects is to place CAPTCHAs — the images of letters and numbers used to prevent computers from creating accounts with online services — in public spaces. Bertholl places them next to graffiti tags because graffiti, like CAPTCHAs, are codes that can only be read by certain people. The project is called “Are You Human?”