The CODE-X series catalogs a vast codex of source codes (aka “signs”) extracted from past audits.

Note that signs on their own, while sometimes interesting, only become truly revelatory and useful once they’re sorted into thematic complexes, and the complexes into codes, and the codes into a meaning map. We call this process “thick description”; the Code-X series is thin description.

“SOUTH IN THE HEAD” NORM: Going south of the US border is perceived as being similar to taking a mind-expanding journey within your head.

“SOUTH IN THE HEAD” FORMS: Mexico associated with far-out and freaky — super-vivid, super-strange — experiences and perceptions. There is a persistent myth in the US that mezcal can make you hallucinate (probably due to confusion with “mescaline”). Can be associated with Day of the Dead iconography, but imagery might also be “primal” or “tribal”

From a 2020 study of “Mexican-ness” codes — as perceived in US culture.