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.
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
Mike Phillips (Primary Supervisor) | |
Laura Rosser (Student) |
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 |