A CIPHER FOR LOCKSBROOK (THE GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS).
Gouache on board, laser cut acrylic, spray paint. 250 x 30cm. 2025.
On display at Bath Spa University's Locksbrook Road campus as part of the Locksbrook Permanent Collection.
Thanks to Gary Lexington for the impetus to make the full colour, laser cut version of this idea.
I became interested in cryptography due to the increasing amount of policing of speech around criticising the genocide in Palestine in the education sector.
A piece by Liberty published on 22nd February 2025 says that as many as 113 students and staff have faced disciplinary action in connection with the pro-Palestinian activism. "Students are facing a worsening crackdown on free speech," a teaching union has warned, after new evidence of universities reporting pro-Gaza protestors to police, subjecting dozens to disciplinary action, and collaborating with private surveillance firms. At least 28 universities are now known to have launched disciplinary investigations against students and staff in connection with their Palestinian activism since October 2023."
I selected elements from the Garden of Earthly Delights, first redrawing them (shown below) and then painting them on squares of birch plywood that I had left over from the Sunset Lexicon table. I laser cut the symbols and their Roman counterparts and assembled the whole thing on three MDF boards.
I created a typeface which you can download by clicking the button. There are no numbers and I am not a professional typographer, so be patient with it.
As part of the RECIPES FOR MAKING presentations by 3 graduating students at Bath Spa University on the 18th June 2025, I gave a brief overview of the cipher and its development. I set a quick challenge to break (what at the time I thought was) a simple code using the cipher and a Vegenere transform. The first to decipher the code won a desktop hoover.
