You can now use your smartphone to discover messages hidden within custom-designed “talking” GIFs, thanks to Italian GIF artists Okkult Motion Pictures. Using Alexander Zolotov’s PhonoPaper app, Okkult makes augmented reality artworks that look and sound like they were taken straight out of a horror movie in space. Devices scan and play looped 2D audio barcodes that look like a bunch of charcoal pastel smudges, but are actually graphical representations of sounds ranging from human voices to music sample. “I’m in a loop. Stop me please,” one loop will plead from smartphone speakers. The distorted sound quality of these audio files resemble creepy distress signals by an abandoned space station or a failed shuttle mission.
Download the Phopaper on the app store or Google Play, and put it into action on Okkult’s Tumblr page.
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Screencap of PhonoPaper scanning a GIF, taken by the autho
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