CODEC -19 [A symbolic guide to Covid-19 pandemic]

A codec is a device or computer program which encodes or decodes a digital data stream or signal. Inspired by the human history of signs and symbols, this expanding Codec attempts to question our response to a crisis in which we must distance ourselves from each other.

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During a viral pandemic we are asked to break the chain of infection by remaining in our homes, distancing ourselves from each other and breaking with our normal social interactions. Government refers to this as social distancing but surely we mean physical distancing. Our social connections are what keep us going and it is to those interactions and the history of homosapien communications that I have been looking during lockdown. Attentive to the history of our signs and symbols from pre linguistic rock inscriptions to depression era hobo chalk markings we have always used pictures to illuminate our way as a species.

In these strange times it has been difficult to make sense of incoming information; incoherent at best, nonsensical at times and in what appears to be constant flux, everything slips around but when words fail pictures don’t so I started making symbols to help make sense of it all. A codec of its own kind, each one has a meaning to me that illuminates a specific aspect of the Covid-19 pandemic and the ways in which it has brought attention to underlying social and political issues. 

Codec-19 Drawings - Ink on Somerset paper. 17x17cm displayed in grid formation  40 160cm x 110cmThe codec continues to grow and can be exhibited in any number, with an accompanying Codec decoder.

Codec-19 Drawings - Ink on Somerset paper. 17x17cm displayed in grid formation 40 160cm x 110cm

The codec continues to grow and can be exhibited in any number, with an accompanying Codec decoder.

 CODEC DECODER

  1. Cotton Candy (unpalatable but they‘re gonna make us eat it anyway)

  2. Rocky Road (the road ahead is spiked) 

  3. Equilibrium (it's hard to strike the right balance)

  4. Coronation (virus lurks here)

  5. Connect 4 (keep your distance)

  6. Disconnected (interrupted education)

  7. Beware of Trap Doors

  8. Silencer (brute force)

  9. Exceptionalist (The Way to Barnard Castle)

  10. Key Worker (the most valued are underpaid)

  11. Hypocrite (speaks with a forked tongue)

  12. Every Cloud (does not have a silver lining) 

  13. Manipulator (gaslighting on a grand scale)

  14. Furloughed (it's all under the bed)

  15. Responder (willing to help those who need it most)

  16. Locked Down (following the rules)

  17. Leader (community activist)

  18. Carer (lives on the line for others) 

  19. Broken (needs TLC not big pharma)

  20. Ladder (no way to climb that)

  21. Herd immunity (or lemmings over the cliff)

  22. Conspiracist

  23. Runcible Spoon (we are not all in this together)

  24. Altruist (thinking of others)

  25. Fold (stories are buried here)

  26. Shielding (bracketed loved ones treated as an aside)

  27. Body count (love and loss turned into a numerical tally)

  28. Drowning Not Waving "mask 19" (locked-in with a wife beater) "Silent Solution"

  29. Quarantine (14 days and counting)

  30. Supremacist (stays quiet about that)

  31. Binocular Rivalry (both visions seem plausible)

  32. Fueling fires

  33. Mixed Messages

  34. Canard (a piece of information intended to deceive)

  35. Crock of Crap (you really do need to keep a lid on it)

  36. Shelter 

  37. Existentialist (Kafka had the right idea)

  38. Sticking Plaster (it’s not enough we need a plan)

  39. Fallen Angel

  40. Squeezed (top & bottom there’s nowhere to go)