QR codes during the pandemic: Seamful quotidian placemaking

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, one technology for contact tracing has come to dominate – QR codes. As a technology pioneered in Japan two decades ago and mainstreamed in China, QR codes have quickly become part of quotidian placemaking. While locations such as China have fully incorporated QR code technology into everyday contexts including public transport and mobile wallet applications, QR codes in the West were relatively overlooked. That was, until the pandemic. In this article, we examine some of the ways QR codes are being imagined and reimagined as part of public placemaking practices. In order to do so, we begin with a short history of QR codes – emerging in Japan, becoming mainstream in China and their consequent uptake globally. We then discuss the methods of our Australian study conducted during the pandemic and the seamful/seamless findings from our study.