Tracking Points

Machine Identification Code or Printer Steganography is recorded in the form of digital watermarks that many laser printers leave on every single color printed page. MICs are recorded in the form of digital watermarks that many laser printers leave on every single color printed page. This process, known as printer steganography or printer dots, was developed by Xerox and Canon in the mid-1980s and allows for the identification of the device with which a document was printed amongst other information about the print’s origins. However, the existence of these printer dots only became known to the public in 2004 during a court case in the Netherlands where these watermarks were used to trace counterfeited tickets.
    Tracking Points, a publication, printed on letter size copy paper on an HP Laserjet home printer, compiles 20 prints of Machine Identification Code (MIC) from printers across the Yale School of Art campus and around New Haven, CT, USA, between February and April 2020.           
    To create this particular collection, I used various printers to print four squares in typical CMYK values on standard letter size paper. Except for the small squares of ink in each corner of the paper, these prints appeared to be blank to the naked eye. These prints were then scanned on a high resolution scanner at 800dpi, revealing the dots.
    All the scans were then compiled into separate sections of the book through various levels of zoom. Each section begins with my notes about the print details such as location of the printer, printer model, date and time. The patterns were then visualised as a video and converted to audio using a music box.