Confused OCR, digital scans, 2016

This Eight part series relates to the medicines and illnesses I have had since being in Abu Dhabi. I have scanned the Arabic side of the medicine instruction booklet that comes with the medicines. In an ever increasing technological world where we talk to “Siri” or say, “Okay, Google, Find the nearest Starbucks” one area that is woefully underserved is the translation of Arabic into English. While living here and many times in my classes I have found that I am sitting in a room where for an hour I literally do not understand a word that is being spoken. This along with the confusion of the Doctor’s and my own confusion as to why these events have occurred led me to create this particular series. So, I scan in the Arabic side and select scan OCR, the computer and the software’s Artificial Intelligence then try to match fonts with the text that the scanner “sees”. This is why sometimes it is letters we recognize but do not form words and other times it is just an image of Arabic typography.

Keywords: Experimental Typography, OCR, scanning

Confused OCR, installed at the Kristin Michelle Mason Gallery, Beacon College, Leesburg, FL