rt4a began as a mishearing. In the mid-2010s, obsessed with Andy Warhol and with the idea of pseudonyms, I decided to change my artist’s name from Arthur Fouray to ‘Arty Fouray’. I dictated it to my phone in English, and Siri wrote RT4A on the screen.
‘Arty Fouray’ kept the measure of Andy Warhol’s name: four letters, then six. But ‘Arty’ made me uneasy; it felt too clownish. The transcription turned a proper name into an impersonal, machine-like acronym, closer to a droid such as R2-D2.
It was a more Warholian gesture than I would have thought, and almost Cagean: the fruit of chance. A code now stands where a name was: RT4A still attributes a work but says less about who made it.
I took the code up at once and drew its logo in February 2014. Since 2021 RT4A has been my artist’s name and my signature, on paintings, objects and recordings; my music has been on streaming platforms under that name since 2022. The code works as an avatar, and its impersonality is constructed too: one signature, no common style. A name can become a style before the work is seen; a code delays that moment.
RT4A is a flexible practice with many horizons: it can take in other artists’ practices, become a collective and not be defined by the short span of one artist’s life. Its contours, its possibilities and its commitments are written as it unfolds.
