The Answer to the Riddle

Remember this piece? I wrote about it here.  I feel like anyone who bought this print at The Calgary Expo has now had ample opportunity to decipher it, and so it's time to post the answer.

'I speak a language with two characters. To understand me, you have to ask what time it is.'

That's the riddle written at the bottom of the image. The language with only two characters is binary, which is made up of 1's and 0's. What time is it? If you write down the times on the clocks from left to right, top to bottom, keeping in mind that you only want 1's and 0's, you get this:

01:11
10:01
01:11
10:01
01:10
00:11

That last one is a bit tricky to figure out, since '00' doesn't show up on an analogue clock, but since 12:11 has a '2' and there are no 2's in binary, 00 is the alternative way to think about that time.

011110010111100101100011 translated from binary into english is yyc, which is the airport code for Calgary. The hidden message in the image is 'Calgary'.

A Hidden Message Within the Image

This was my submission for the Calgary Expo's art book. The theme was 'Adventures in Time' and my very smart husband came up with the idea of doing an image with a hidden message. We decided to use clocks because of the 'time' part of the theme and the 'adventure' was in solving the riddle and deciphering the code. I was pretty excited about the piece because it's a departure from my usual work. And I love collaborating with my husband. He's very creative and has unique ideas. 

Sadly, my submission didn't make the cut and won't be in the Calgary Expo Art Book, but I worked really hard on it and I think it's a cool piece. I also thought it would look interesting hanging on a wall so I'm having some prints made that will be available to purchase at the Calgary Expo. I'm hoping that some of the expo attendees will appreciate the thought and subtleties in this image. 

For anyone who's wondering about the riddle, I'm going to wait until after the expo to reveal the answer so that anyone who purchases the print has a chance to figure it out.