Body Code is an art project where the artist’s latex suit contains printed QR codes that the public can scan with their smartphones. The QR codes on the suit redirect the viewer to the Body Code website where they can see data found on the web about the body.

Body Code responds to our relationship with data in the age of the internet. With the abundance of information available, we often prioritize scanning for information over looking into the details. The word “scan” used to define an action related to our physical body, but now it is apart of our digital vocabulary, describing our interactions with the Internet. This performance reflects on this phenomenon by showing our obsession with data, this often leads to a loss of the physical body. By encouraging the public to scan Trenda’s latex suit, the work comments on how the flesh body is disappearing due to our virtual obsession of information.

For more than a decade, the Body Code project has remained a dynamic and continuously evolving performance piece, adapting to shifts in the ever-changing Internet. The intention is to contemplate how, in the era of abundant online data, we can reestablish a meaningful connection with our own bodies and the world around us. Recently, the artist employs ChatGPT to engage in a dialogue with the AI program, delving into inquiries regarding the human body and the impact of artificial intelligence on it. Can AI be a reliable source of information about the body, or does it possess the potential to propagate falsehoods, at times resembling a mere tape recorder parroting inaccurate data? Ultimately, this raises the fundamental question: Where does the truth about the human body lie, and who wields the authority over it?

Body Code premiered at the Scope Art Fair in Basel, Switzerland and has been performed at various locations and events, such as the A+D Museum, Wynwood Art Fair, Zero1 Biennial, Photo LA, Perform Chinatown with Charlie James Gallery, Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, Art Center Nabi in South Korea, Startup Fair, Creative Tech Week in New York, Women in Steam, LA Mobile Arts Festival, Context Art Miami, Art Miami, and during the 2023 ARS Electronica.

LCD screens were sponsored by Earth LCD http://store.earthlcd.com/.

Tiffany Trenda is a multidisciplinary performance artist born in 1979 in Los Angeles. She received her BFA from Art Center College of Design and her MFA from UCLA Design and Media Arts program. Trenda won Artist of the Year at the London International Creative Competition Awards in 2008. Then, in 2009, she introduced “Entropy” at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. She was invited to perform at the 2010 World Expo, in Shanghai, China at the British Pavilion. She also performed at Broad Art Museum, Architecture + Design Museum, Los Angeles Contemporary Art Exhibitions, Boulder Contemporary Art Museum, and the Italian Cultural Institute. Trenda was included in the performance program at the Metamorphoses of the Virtual – 100 Years of Art and Freedom during the 55th annual Venice Biennale. Trenda has exhibited at the Faena Art Center in Buenos Aires for the highly publicized show, “Auto Body,” and her work was included in the special projects section for Context Art Miami. In 2017 she exhibited at the Laboratorio Arte Alameda in Mexico City and was on a panel for SXSW. More recently, her work was included in “Neotopia” at Art Center Nabi in South Korea, Brand Library and Art Center, and the Alliance of Women in Media Arts and Sciences at UC Santa Barbara. Trenda’s work is in the permeant collection of the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art.

Tiffany Trenda investigates the intersection of the human body, particularly the female body, and evolving technologies. She is interested in how our bodies are constantly shifting between the physical and simulated, and how this impacts our experience of the world around us.

Her work presents a dialogue between the performative body and the technological landscape. Through her work, she blurs the boundaries between the digital and physical, inviting the public to question phenomenology of the body and simulation. She is interested in how simulated experiences impact our intimacy, memory, and senses.