The Fitful Flog

This is a QR code bug. It is really just a waterbomb with legs, skinny bug-like legs. What makes it interesting is that it has two ways of reproducing itself. The first is the ordinary way most origami models use to reproduce — folders share them, either by teaching in person or through diagrams and tutorials. This assumes the intention of the folder in wanting to learn the model and the intention of the teacher in the demonstration or the diagramming.

The second method here is one of embedded self-referential directions, a web analog of genetic information. Say this model is left somewhere public, a cafe or bar or bus station, and some geeky boy walks by. The QR code attracts his interest, he photographs the code with his smart phone and bam! the phone comes up with the page you’re reading with handy links to the diagrams and and special paper. Very meta. The geek prints it out and either folds it or finds some more knowledgeable geek in his geeky crowd to fold it. Thus is the circle of life completed, only to begin again when the geeky crowd runs off to the next flash mob happening, leaving behind the wily QR code bug, where it sits on the table, quietly contemplating its own intentionality.

Metatextual reproduction is discouraged or forbidden in some jurisdictions: please consult your local laws before propagating the QR code bug.