For one uninterrupted hour, an iPhone becomes nothing more than a black square.
That is the premise of The Square Is, a native iPhone application and a work of software art inspired by Kazimir Malevich’s Black Square (1915). The project presents users with a single challenge: leave your phone completely untouched for one hour.
Once the challenge begins, the application fills the screen with a solid black square. There are no buttons, animations or interactions. If the user leaves the app or uses the phone before the hour is over, the session immediately ends and can only be attempted again the following day.
While simple in form, the project is a reinterpretation of Suprematism through software. If Malevich’s Black Square represented the “zero point” of painting – a radical reduction that sought the essence of art – The Square Is asks what a comparable zero point might look like in the digital age.
Today’s software is built around abundance: endless scrolling, continuous interaction, recommendations and, increasingly, AI-generated content. The Square Is moves in the opposite direction. Instead of adding functionality, it deliberately removes it until almost nothing remains. The black square becomes both the interface and the artwork.
The project is not intended as a productivity or digital well-being application. Instead, it functions as a critique of software designed to maximise engagement. There are no streaks, achievements, behavioural metrics or gamified rewards. Rather than competing for attention, the application creates a temporary space where attention can exist outside the screen.
Successfully completing the hour unlocks a private encrypted journal where participants can reflect on how they spent their reclaimed time. Journal entries remain encrypted and stored exclusively on the device. No personal data is collected, no accounts are required and nothing is synchronised to the cloud.
Although distributed through the App Store, The Square Is is conceived as a piece of conceptual software: a reinterpretation of Black Square in which the canvas has been replaced by the smartphone – the defining interface of contemporary life. If Black Square marked the zero point of painting in 1915, The Square Is proposes a possible zero point for software.
The application is intentionally minimalist, consisting of a full-screen immersive interface that renders a single black square throughout the challenge session. Local data is stored on-device only, with encrypted journal entries and no user accounts, analytics, cloud synchronisation, or personal data collection. The onboarding experience requires no login and no payment details to begin the free trial.
Distribution is through the Apple App Store as a native iOS application. Developed in Swift using SwiftUI.
Project Page | App Store (Free)
