The Aesthetics of Error: The role of human error in a digital society

Lead Research Organisation: Plymouth University
Department Name: Sch of Art, Design & Architecture

Abstract

To reveal how people are affected by human error in a society that is dominated by accuracy, correctness and predictability, and how this can be uncovered through a socially engaged art practice, which questions the dissemination of knowledge in a digital age and networked society.

Publications

10 25 50
 
Title (mis)Feed Loops 
Description Epson LQ870, Epson LQ570, Oki 320 Elite dot matrix printers, continuous feed 70gsm paper 
Type Of Art Artwork 
Year Produced 2020 
Impact Project reveals how errors signify new forms of usability and political reflections on the role of the internet and digital culture, as cultural commentary, or resistance. 
URL http://laurarosser.com/works/
 
Title (mis)Folding 
Description Dual screen video performance, screen prints on Offenbach bible paper 450 cm (w) x 640 cm (h) 
Type Of Art Artwork 
Year Produced 2017 
Impact the work has contributed to discussions about how error is messy. Upgrading error to an uncertain and complex space of not knowing, unlearning, and renewal. 
URL http://laurarosser.com/works/
 
Title (un)Learning Zone 
Description Performance / installation at BABE (Bristol Artists Book Exhibition) Arnolfini Centre for Contemporary Arts, Bristol 
Type Of Art Artwork 
Year Produced 2019 
Impact This project impacts understandings of digital logic, specifically how errors breakdown and disrupt digital logic 
URL http://laurarosser.com/socially-engaging-works/
 
Title Enchiridion: Direction Agreed 
Description Limited edition paperback book. Perfect bound 18.42 cm (w) x 23.2 cm (h) 
Type Of Art Artwork 
Year Produced 2018 
Impact This project contributes to discussion on how errors in print understood differently as a consequence of post-digital systems (or practices, or cultures) 
URL http://laurarosser.com/works/
 
Title Enchiridion: Unlearning Space 
Description Various media: performance, dot matrix, laser, inkjet and screen print, and audio. 
Type Of Art Artwork 
Year Produced 2018 
Impact the project claims that errors in print understood differently as a consequence of post-digital systems (or practices, or cultures) 
URL http://laurarosser.com/works/
 
Title Reading Enchiridion 
Description Audio 12:42 
Type Of Art Artwork 
Year Produced 2018 
Impact the project uncovers how print is a messy process, not an informational one, or a didactic programatic logic. Suggesting it is messy because it involves digital and analogue processes, and the unpredictability of people. 
URL http://laurarosser.com/works/
 
Description IMPACT 10 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact IMPACT is the conference at which all matters printmaking are present and discussed practice and research in the field. My academic paper and presentation discussed the significance of error in post-digital printmaking.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
URL https://www.impact10.es
 
Description SAR 10 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact For the 10th SAR conference on Artistic Research, the Society for Artistic Research (SAR) I presented an academic paper to discuss how diagramming (as a post-digital activity) might contribute to not knowing and unlearning:

'Error is not a yes - no. The feelings associated with different error categories are complex.' (Williams, The Phenomenology of Error, 1981)

Joseph Williams's taxonomy is influenced by a logical approach to the categorisation of error. Using this as a point of departure for my research, I explore the slippages between types of error and the way in which logic starts to break down when blips, mistakes and failures occur. Informed by my socially engaged artistic practice, I propose a more fluid error taxonomy through diagramming, to establish flexible clusters of error types.

These methods go against the ways that errors are commonly understood in digital culture, where systems try to reduce, if not erase, error. In relation to diagramming, a more open and speculative approach to error is encapsulated by my adoption of the phrase 'misadventures of thought' (Deleuze). My interest is in a meshing together of these tendencies: from the hard logic of communication and more subjective, artistic modes. At the core of this research is a concern with errors in the context of the 'postdigital', a perspective in which artists embrace error and failure as creative tools (Cramer), where error can be seen to exhibit agency (Latour) and is a critical contributor in making non-knowing. This concept begins to suggest how artworks can fade in and out of meaning and how in the context of my research, errors, mistakes and anomalies have epistemic value and become active participants in the process of making meaning.

In addition to my artistic practice and diagramming I draw on a number of methodologies in order to understand the agency of error in more detail, including: Actor-Network-Theory (Latour) for the way in which errors demonstrate agency through relationality; Speculative Realism (Shaviro) for its focus on non correlationist thought; and New Materialism (Bennett) for providing a framework on the force of things (errors).

Through a performance presentation of (mis)folding diagrams and a participatory diagrammatic workshop, the session will question how error indicates a co-constituted agency in its ability to persist, disrupt and create disorder - which I position as creative opportunities. Through the presentation and workshop I propose to create an un-learning space that disrupts digital orderliness through a methodological process of creative disorder.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
URL https://sar2019.zhdk.ch