The idea emerged while we were driving across the United States in May 2022, stopping in Milwaukee for the exhibition of The OO Guide to Sobriety at The Suburban. A chance encounter with red-and-yellow semaphore flags — the International Code of Signals — prompted an extension of the “double-O” project (a play on our two surnames and the two round camera lenses): a writing system built from the letter-O flag signal, each letter conceived as two flags around the signaler’s body and expressed as a combination of sine waves. The title is from Myron Brinig’s 1933 satirical novel about a writer who witnesses a tidal wave hitting Los Angeles. The work examines communication, visibility, and delay through maritime signaling.
