Every digital image is a sequence of ones and zeros. This reader contains the complete binary code of the painting — 7,526,312 digits — and reads them aloud, one at a time, at a pace set for writing by hand.

 

The code is 8-bit JPEG: the same format used to store and transmit images across the internet, and the same format used to train the AI models that now generate them. Each session picks up where the last left off. The counter below records the current position within the file: how many digits have been written, and how many remain.