Cipher Mysteries

I really don't know how I managed not to pick up on it, but last year a group of German artists put on a VMs-themed installation at the Grauerhof in Aschersleben entitled "DAS VOYNICH MANUSKRIPT: eine künstlersicht auf ein rätsel" (an artist's view of a mystery), featuring pieces by Rüdiger Giebler, Moritz Götze, Olaf Holzapfel, Alicja Kwade, Daniel Lergon ...

Though technically they're probably not in cipher (rather, they're almost certainly three wobbly dictionary codes), they definitely form an historical mystery: and even today, the Beale Papers' promise of 19th century treasure continues to inspire people to borrow a distant cousin's mini-diggers and covertly dig implausible holes not too far from where Buford's Tavern once stood. Which is, of course, both foolish and most likely illegal, so ...

Even though things are pretty quiet here in Cipher Mysteries Mansions, there's still a backlog of minor Voynichiana to deal with. Wish me luck, here goes... Here's a Russian-language 2010 'Internet Edition' facsimile of the Voynich Manuscript. Might end up cheaper than the Gawsewitch edition, who knows? Here's a webcomic from 2003 where the artist (David Morgan) draws the frames, people ...

Here's something you don't see every day: an online comic with a Voynich tattoo gag. The Owl House's theme is "problem solving and paranormal investigation", which are apparently (take note, Scooby Doo fans) "not mutually exclusive". Of course, until we can actually read the VMs, the real problem with having a Voynichese tattoo is that - unlike "Mum" or "I ...

Here's the hot-off-the-presses official trailer for "The Thomas Beale Cipher" animation I mentioned a short while back, coming to a film festival near you:- Looks pretty good, I'd say. If the video isn't embedded above, feel free to head over to the official site, courtesy of Polymix on Vimeo. Enjoy!

I think that there will always be films based around codes because they give screenwriters such an "easy in". Just saying "code" conjures up... Dark secrets (e.g. heresy undermining The Church, free energy undermining The Market, occult powers, any old stuff really) Powerful interests (usually multiple conspiracies fighting each other behind the scenes for control of 'The Secret') A central McGuffin that is ...

Artist Anna-Lise Horsley has a mini online art gallery of her work on the Saatchi Online gallery: inspired by all kinds of floral and herbal shapes and shadows, two works showcased are "Spode Voynich" and "Voynich Poppy" (both from 2008). I'd have to say that I prefer her "Pandemonium" (2009), but each to ...

I used to quite like Peanuts as a kid, though looking back I'd be hard-pressed to say which of the characters I particularly identified with. Perhaps identifying with characters is more of an adult way of relating to cultural objets d'art: I think I just liked the jokes. Of course, nothing in the following badly-hacked Peanuts cartoon is anything to do with ...

Most of the tenuous (yet culturally interesting) sideways links to cipher mysteries that ping on my 20-screen bank of monitors are to relatively low-brow stuff - airport novels, films, neat 3d renders using Voynichese fonts, etc. Furthermore, they tend (with only a few honourable exceptions) to be fairly po-faced (and unsexy) The-Mismatched-Protagonists-Must-Battle-Against-An-Infinitely-Resourced-Ancient-Conspiracy-To-Save-The-World-As-We-Know-It-By-Decoding-An-Even-More-Ancient-Ciphertext pap. Which is quite sad, really. So it is with a great ...

A few days back, two small book-shaped things arrived in the post: and I've been pondering what to say about them ever since. In fact, I've been struggling to work out what I think about them... you'll see what I mean in a moment. You might superficially compare them with, for example, Luigi Serafini's famously unreadable book: however, I have relatively ...