systems – Little Bristling Soul

Ann Hamilton : privation and excesses, Capp Street Project, 1989, Open to the street, a display of 750,000 pennies, laid by hand, leaching
honey at the edges, the scent of copper and honey faced by the
smell and gaze of three sheep, a figure seated, hands wringing over
a hat filled with honey, two mortar and pestles grinding, teeth and
pennies.
The budget for this project, $7,500, was obtained in the denomination
of 750,000 pennies. They were laid into a skin of honey to define
a 45’x32’ rectangle on the floor. Facing this display a side room
housed 3 sheep, a person sat dipping and wringing their hands into
a felt hat filled with honey and two motorized mortar and pestles
ground elements that make reference to human systems: one abstract
and one biological. One ground a bowl of pennies; the other, a collection
of human teeth.
At the completion of the project, the pennies were cleaned and
counted, and then used to cover the expenses of the project. The
remaining money was donated to fund a symposium supporting
the collaboration between artists and educators in the San Francisco
Public School System.
–Ann Hamilton

michel foucault

zygmunt bauman, liquid modernity

We know of no system that functions perfectly, that is to say, without losses, flights, wear and tear, errors, accidents, opacity—a system whose return is one for one.
—Michel Serres, The Parasite

The enemy of art is the absence of limitations.

Orson Welles

Within the virtual exist all the possible forms it can acquire, all the possible meanings it can represent; therefore, error, as one of these possibilities, constitutes a part of virtuality. The machine holds within it a potential for the glitch, with the possibility to generate unforeseen results.

Therefore, “malfunction and failure are not signs of improper production. On the contrary, they indicate the active production of the ‘accidental potential’ in any product”, as Paul Virilio noted.^[5] Accepting error as something inherent in the machine brings us to the original meaning of the word error: a wandering in a different path, without a purpose, that can give unexpected results. In Greek, lathos originally meant something that remains hidden and imperceptible. The error reflects a lack of efficiency, but not a lack of meaning -the meaning is there, lanthanon (hidden).

“THE WILDERNESS IN THE MACHINE”: GLITCH AND THE POETICS OF ERROR | CHRISTINA GRAMMATIKOPOULOU