Chapter Five

These drawings describe a journey and realization I went through due to a serious medical diagnosis. It is simply about living life to the full, and the joy the of just being alive. The drawings display an encrypted password (left) and readable story text (right) of the 10-chapter story. Each drawing has a standalone statement or comment on life as well as being part of the set of ten chapters.

The original drawings are made using pencils, paint, and burnt milk. Milk is brushed on, or poured onto the paper, and then baked in an oven to create rich brown tones that are fixed and don’t deteriorate. I am re-visiting a method we used, as children, to write secret messages to each other. It was a way of creating a space that only us children understood, it was an adult-free world built in our imaginations of hidden treasure maps, and secret letters.

‘A Story in 10 Chapters’ has gone through an encryption process. This method can be used to determine ownership of a unique artifact, and is similar to the creation/sell/buy method used on Blockchains (NFTs). Each chapter is encrypted using an RSA cypher called RSA/ECB/PKCS1Padding. The encrypted text can only be unencrypted using public, and private keys. The two keys are given to different parties, and only when they come together will they reveal the story text. The encrypted output is also password-protected using a hashing mechanism called a Bcrypt hash. The password (hash) is much shorter than the encrypted output and is easier to manage.