It takes just one
I am examining the interaction of errors between humans and computers and how these systems can perpetuate themselves. It takes just one minor error, whether its a punch card or programming code to create a disastrous error. This project is inspired by a myriad of sources. First, I had a digital photo frame at my desk that suddenly stopped working. Instead of the screen going black, lines and rows of colors cycled through strange patterns. Later that evening, I happened to catch an episode of “How It’s Made” on television and one of the segments were showing how fabrics were created on large industrial looms. It then struck me that the punch cards that were widely used throughout the 18th and 19th centuries for controlling textile looms and that kind of automation would eventually give rise to the modern day computer processing. Considering the connection between something considered analogue and rudimentary and something that is thought of as hi-tech and digital led me to investigate the patterns of miscalculation and errors that often occur with computer programming.
- Client: Self
- Materials and methods: Adobe Illustrator printed on 2'x3' archival semi-gloss paper
The beauty of a miscalculation.
Although nowadays, punch cards are obsolete as a recording medium as we have moved onto magnetic recording devices. Humans are responsible for the programming that are often designed to prevent miscalculations...and since humans themselves are not error-free, there will always be miscalculations. And since the design program crashed a few times during this creation, it only made sense to incorporate the error logs as part of the design.