Project NoCode 无码计划

Project NoCode emerged as a (pseudo)anonymous artist collective engaging with topical issues pertaining to urban life under the COVID-19 pandemic "new normal" in China. Our interventions examined the transformation of public spaces, the (mis)applications of digital surveillance, the theatrical practice of social distancing, and the ostensible long reach of QR codes and its potential consequences.

Through installations, performances, and digital interventions, we documented and disrupted a moment when Chinese urban life was being rapidly rewritten by pandemic protocols. Each work served as both archive and intervention—capturing the emergence of new social choreographies while questioning their underlying systems of control.

Works

Social Binaries (2020)

A community bulletin board as façade Algorithmic system judging participants through QR codes

Taking China's ubiquitous health code system as a starting point, we created an alternative network of QR codes that claimed to rate individuals on beauty, kindness, dedication, filial piety, and integrity. The work reveals the absurdity of reducing human complexity to binary systems while questioning our growing acceptance of algorithmic judgment.

Experience the work at projectnocode.github.io.

Participants taking the surveyMs. Steve deemed "unfriendly" by the algorithm

Security Guard BA0056 (2020)

A projected virtual security guard performs the now-familiar ritual of temperature checking while occasionally scrolling through his phone—a commentary on the often mechanical and theatrical nature of pandemic safety measures.

When anyone comes close, BA0056 will raise his thermometer gun to check your body temperature.

Sweeping Ponies (2020)

Playing with the Chinese homophone 扫码 (scanning code) and 扫马 (sweeping horses), this performance piece transformed the mechanical act of QR code scanning into an absurdist ritual. As performers "swept" toy horses in Shanghai's streets, the work sparked conversations about our unquestioning adoption of surveillance technologies.

A Film That Never Begins (1:43:44)

On day 111 of mainland China's cinema shutdown, we projected an endless loop of film company logos onto the demolished Shanxi Theatre. The piece speaks to both the suspended animation of pandemic life and the broader context of cultural censorship in China.

It was was 111 days since the shutdown of all movie theaters in mainland China due to COVID-19; In the 66 days to come, theaters would remain closed.

Short-Distance Communication System (2020)

As acrylic dividers became mandatory fixtures in Shanghai's restaurants and cafeterias, they created an paradoxical social landscape: people sat face-to-face, separated by transparent barriers, forced to shout to be heard or resign to silence.

Our response was a system of modified telephone sets, installed across these dividers, allowing strangers and friends to share intimate conversations despite their physical separation.

Two people talking on the phoneShort-distance communication system

The piece deliberately echoes prison visiting rooms—drawing attention to how pandemic measures had transformed everyday social spaces into sites of enforced separation, while still maintaining the illusion of connection.

Exhibition & Archive

The collective's work was presented at Console.log, West Bund Art Center, Shanghai (2020) and is archived in the independent publication Things Will Work Out Tomorrow.

Like the temporary nature of our collective, these works remain as artifacts of a specific moment—when the pandemic's "new normal" was still being written, and artists could still intervene in its authorship.