Cipher Envelopes

In mid-2010 the organization Wikileaks released an encrypted 1.5 Gb file (insurance.aes256) on its website to a limited number of people. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange declared the file a “thermo-nuclear device” which would be detonated by releasing the file’s password should anything happen to Assange or the Wikileaks organization. Presently, the contents of this “insurance” document are unknown and its larger file structure is only speculative. In Cipher, the file has been visualized through a script which turns the raw binary data of the encrypted file into a field of black and white pixels. The output has been printed in entirety and repurposed into 250 unique hand made envelopes.