To err is almost human was an artistic publication project, carried out in collaboration with the designer Cecilia Costa. It has as its subject a machine which I have built for writing, drawing, cutting, and carving.

To err is almost human was an artistic publication project, carried out in collaboration with the designer Cecilia Costa. It has as its subject a machine which I have built for writing, drawing, cutting, and carving.

The project formed part of the work upon which basis I received my masters diploma from the Dutch Art Institute in July 2008. Each year, the DAI organises a collaborative publication project in conjunction with the Werkplaats Typografie in Arnhem. A small budget is available to each graduating student for the printing of a limited edition of 200-250 copies.

As already mentioned, the subject of my publication was the writing, drawing, cutting, carving machine which I have been working on since the beginning of 2008. There is more specific information about this machine elsewhere.

What was most interesting to me was the research process itself, the slow ritual of trial-and-error during which the machine was developed. It became apparent that sometimes the mistakes and setbacks which inevitably occurred on the way in fact produced the most interesting results. In contrast, “progress” in the scientific sense has as its unspoken purpose the exclusion of doubt, unpredictability, and error.

I became aware that there lay great potential for artistic exploration in this situation. Whereas plenty artists have been “inspired” by science, an approach which I personally find little more than illustrative and in fact quite tautological, there appeared to me to be a more interesting and more involved alternative: to use scientific and technical research as a medium for art.

This last statement merits some explanation. Whereas a scientist or engineer who is pursuing a programme of research has as their goal a certain desirable state of affairs (a cure for a deadly disease, a more efficient type of air filter, the complete genome of a certain species), the artistic method which I am outlining has as its goal the research itself. This process will enthusiastically embrace whatever unexpected results and intriguing mistakes happen to emerge along the way. At the risk of cliché, it may be said that it is about the journey rather than the destination.

Of course, this naturally begs the question of how such research can best be presented. The publication To err is almost human is an attempt to visualise and explain the theory which underpins the very practical process which has lead to the coming into being of this rather quirky machine, with all its curious, fickle unpredictability.

All the drawings and carvings in the publication were made by the machine. Each is reproduced at its original scale, with a sequence number and date clearly showing its place on the evolutionary timeline. This timeline in fact runs in reverse chronological order, with the earliest, most primitive (and in my opinion, the most beautiful) drawings at the end. In this way the passage of time and of progress is stripped back to a core, to an idea. What remains is something strangely distant, a primal relic.

Of course, a lot of the very particular quality of the drawings is lost in the process of conventional offset printing. As a means to offset this, the title of each book and its position in the edition was drawn “by hand” on each copy. In this way, each is unique – while the machine has at reached a level of some sophistication and virtuosity, it will for example never write an “8″ in exactly the same way twice.

Finally, it is worth stating that the publication can be approached in two ways: either as a written work, or as something visual. Whereas both serve as differing approaches to explaining the core message, they are nevertheless tightly interwoven in a coherent whole. For this in particular I must express my admiration for the skill and insight of Cecilia Costa, the graphic designer with whom I worked throughout the project.

View the whole publication online

The title of this work refers to a concept of the French philosopher Henri Bergson (1859-1951), that of “la Durée” (“the Duration”). This concept is rather hard to explain but in effect posits that time as measurable and quantifiable (seconds, hours, years) is quite different from time as experienced by conscious individuals. This inner life, or time, is the Duration.

The title of this work refers to a concept of the French philosopher Henri Bergson (1859-1951), that of “la Durée” (“the Duration”). This concept is rather hard to explain but in effect posits that time as measurable and quantifiable (seconds, hours, years) is quite different from time as experienced by conscious individuals. This inner life, or time, is the Duration.

It occurs to me that this phenomenon serves as a useful metaphor for how we as individuals must deal with the reality of our existence in the world and surrounded by others. Since the private time (and following Wittgenstein, language) of the soul is incommunicable with the outside world, we are thus condemned to isolation, to a type of core of loneliness which cannot be overcome.

In this work, as in others, I have attempted to visualise and paraphrase this concept through literal means. The work consists of a series of four high-definition videos of exactly 2 minutes, each slowed down to somewhat less than half real time. It is not obvious to see in this slow time that I am performing a series of otherwise normal actions extremely fast indeed. The effect of this is that the slow-motion playback and my frantic actions serve to cancel each other out to some extent. Whereas everyone else seems stuck in treacle, I am as close to normal as can be found in this strange, dreamlike world.

Durée (short excerpts)

In May of 2008 I was involved, along with other students of the Dutch Art Institute and curator James Beckett, in preparing a work explaining the Here As The Centre Of The World project for the Kunstvlaai in Amsterdam.

Work produced in collaboration with other students of the Dutch Art Institute and curated by James Beckett.

In May of 2008, the Dutch Art Institute took part in the annual Kunstvlaai (“art tart”) exhibition at the Westergasfabriek in Amsterdam. The purpose of this participation was to highlight the Here As The Centre Of The World project, a series of workshops in six cities worldwide: Taipei, Damascus, Beirut, Khartoum, and finally two in which I was personally involved: Diyarbakır and Enschede.

Preparing a coherent work which would sufficiently explain the aims and results of this long and ambitious project was not straightforward, especially if it was to be done in a way which would work within the slightly chaotic and overwhelming context of the Kunstvlaai. The idea which was developed in collaboration with curator James Beckett was to construct a physical archive, an imposing structure with numerous drawers, panels, and sliding elements which would accurately visualise the fragmented and interconnected nature of the six workshops; whilst each took place in a different city, there were participants from the other cities involved in every case. This and the underlying common purpose of promoting intercultural artistic research and exchange meant that it was important to produce a work which would underline the unity of the project as a whole as well as the specific results from the six cities. It was decided that the archive would effectively achieve this.

Furthermore, since an important part of the DAI’s participation at the Kunstvlaai was to promote the forthcoming book about the project, there was an important conceptual relationship to the idea of printed matter. As a means of democratising the flow and dispersal of information, we provided a photocopy machine with which members of the public were encouraged to make copies of the “archived” material in the drawers; this material was designed to be readily assembled and re-assembled as needed.

In the interests of efficiency and because everyone was also very busy with other things, the many tasks involved in planning, developing, and constructing the exhibit were divided up amongst the various members of the group. My personal responsibility was the realising of one of the more fanciful elements of the design: the idea that the drawers of the archive would be physically interconnected, so that opening one would close another and vice versa, in a totally unpredictable way. This would further help to underline the connections inherent in the project, as well of course helping to create a work which was intriguing in itself.

This involved several long but entertaining days putting together a mechanical system involving cranks, levers, nylon cables, tubes, and lots of petroleum jelly. Perhaps surprisingly, it proved to be a reliable and effective system, and survived the rigours of public display.