The Artist Is Dead - The Art Is Free
is a steganographic image that only becomes visible through changing lighting conditions and technical mediation. 16 blue squares appear under LED light. Only infrared radiation and a camera in night vision mode make a hidden drawing visible. The work reflects perception, visibility and the role of technical media as a mirror of our knowledge. A homage to _The Death of Marat_ becomes a farewell to the artist's self - and an opening of the work to new interpretations.
Listen to article
Title
The Artist Is Dead – The Art Is Free
steganographic image, cycle I
Description of the work (revised version)
The Artist Is Dead – The Art Is Free is a steganographic image that works with different light sources and levels of perception.
What is visible does not depend on the image alone, but on the mode of seeing.
In cold LED light, 16 blue squares arranged like a puzzle initially appear - a seemingly monochrome, closed surface.
The image appears reduced, almost neutral.
Only when a ground-level construction spotlight with classic tungsten light is used and additional infrared radiation reaches the image carrier does a second level begin to open. This remains hidden from the human eye. It only becomes visible through the mediation of technical perception.
Steganographic decryption
The decryption is not done by looking closely, but by using a digital mirror:
A surveillance camera in night vision mode - without an active infrared filter - makes visible what is hidden from the human eye. The camera image is shown on a small monitor opposite the work.
What appears there is not a projection or a video, but the real physical work - made visible through a different spectral translation of the light.
The pigments used react differently to infrared radiation:
Some allow IR light to pass through almost completely, others absorb or reflect it. These differences create a contrasting image that can only be read under certain conditions.
This technique is known from restoration, where infrared images are used to make hidden layers of paint visible.
The phenomenon remains fleeting.
As soon as the light, temperature or viewing angle changes, the image disappears again.
Image subject and reference
A conscious homage to “The Death of Marat” (1793) by Jacques-Louis David appears in the hidden drawing.
As with David, the body depicted is not just an image of an event, but rather the carrier of an idea. The bathtub becomes a transitional space – a place between life and transformation.
There is no political martyr here, but rather a resigned artist ego state.
Death is not dramatic, but silent.
In his hand, not a quill pen, but a tablet - a sign of the change in tools, time and production conditions.
Cognition and perception
The work does not exhibit images, but rather conditions of seeing.
It asks:
What do we really see?
Do we all see the same thing?
Where does reality begin and where does projection end?
The duality of front light and rear light, of visible and hidden levels, consciously refers to the Platonic allegory of the cave.
It's not the picture that's deceptive - it's the certainty of seeing.
The Artist Is Dead – The Art Is Free sees death not as an end, but as a necessary transformation:
The author resigns.
The work remains – free of intention, open to perception.