Unique Piece • Private Collection • Digital Expressionism

Created for the Digital Expressionism exhibition, Insert Coin explores the growing dependence between human perception and technological mediation. Constructed pixel by pixel using Venetian glass tesserae, the work initially presents itself as a dense field of fragmented text, visual noise, and arcade-inspired commands repeated across the surface.

At first glance, the composition appears abstract and encrypted. Layers of color, typography, and digital interference obscure the image beneath, transforming the mosaic into a visual system that resists immediate interpretation. The recurring phrase Insert Coin references the ritual of arcade culture while simultaneously evoking broader ideas of access, consumption, and participation within contemporary digital environments.

The work reveals its hidden dimension through a technological paradox. When viewed through a mobile phone camera, the mosaic’s pixel structure collapses into a different resolution, allowing a concealed ecstatic face to emerge from the visual noise. The image exists physically within the work yet remains inaccessible without the mediation of another screen.

Through this mechanism, Insert Coin reflects on desire, attention, and the monetization of experience. What appears to be a nostalgic reference to arcade culture becomes a broader investigation into how technology conditions perception and shapes access to images. The work proposes a critical question: in an age saturated by screens, are we still looking directly at reality, or only through layers of technological translation?

Work held in a private collection. Available for commissions and site-specific projects based on this concept.