Failure
and Error and Chance (in Art)
Jean Tinguely,
ÇHomage to New YorkÈ, 1960
Written for:
The New School for Social Research in
NYC
2013 Graduate Anthropology Conference:
ÒFailuresÓ
Friday, April 12,
2013
In current art, chance of failure
is assimilated into the very definition of what art does best. What is valuable
in art is its indeterminate identity and function - its realm of freedom and
non-systematic messiness.[1]
Failure in one moment (as defined by that moment) can shift quickly to the
position of utmost value in the next. Often, failure is re-evaluated in art -
and this re-evaluation helps art to expand.
For example boredom, the failure
to entertain, was an important defining value in 1960s minimalism (take for
example, Andy WarholÕs 1964 film Empire, that consists of eight
hours and five minutes of continuous slow motion footage of the Empire State
Building). So for most artists, way down deep we understand failure as a
potentially positive swerve away from the norm.
There is also an
interesting association between error and failure in art. Errors are frequently
productive in art. Here I point you towards Philadelphia, where you can see
Marcel DuchampÕs renowned work The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors,
Even (The Large Glass). Duchamp formally declared the work ÒunfinishedÓ in
1923. During shipping however, following its first (and only unbroken) public
exhibition, the glass was symmetrically shattered; receiving numerous large
cracks in it. Duchamp repaired it, but left the cracks in the glass intact,
accepting the chance element as a part of the piece. This shattering chance
error had in fact finished the piece - and in my opinion greatly improved it -
by adding lines of energy into the homogeneous material.
DuchampÕs case demonstrates that the
productiveness of failure in art operates in defiance of programmatic,
systematic and unitary ideals Ð ideals that lurk behind neo-classicism and
scientific naturalism. Of course there are mistakes to be made in art Ð but not
(necessarily) errors made in its production.
The biggest source of
failure in art is in failing to take risks that engage with the automatic
qualities of error.[2] For errors
cannot be forced - or they become theatrical devises. This issue of
theatricality in art has been thoroughly critiqued by Michael Fried in his
essay Art and Objecthood (1967)
where Fried criticized the theatricality of minimal art. He introduced the opposing term absorption (I prefer immersion) in his 1980 book Absorption and Theatricality, where he argues that whenever a self-consciousness
of viewing exists, absorption is compromised, and theatricality results.
So all the way down we
find absorption in error and indeterminacy to be a beneficial and cherished
attribute for art. From what art is Ð to how it is made. Indeed, its failure to be clear in its purpose, in its method, and in
its reception is one of artÕs greatest accomplishments. The failure to be
clear, in other words to be abstract and vague, is excellent, quite often, (but
not always) in art. This non-specific quality of course can be seen as a
failure to communicate. This is true if what you want to communicate is
information - but untrue if what you want to communicate is sensation.
Thus through
failure, great art resists academic templates while at the same time
accumulating sensual knowledge.
So
strangely, I am interested in a history of art that fails to eliminate indeterminacy and chance operations from among its
midst, but rather assigns principle values of interest to those qualities: a
history that I call the art of noise.
I say strangely because this interest in noise art - that
is visual art as compared to noise music[3] - has led me to
organize my thoughts and feelings of failure
into a system of anti-systematic disturbance that I think of as my inner noise
depository. Luckily for me, chance-based art does have a small but glorious
history (and present) out in the real world, but in no way can it be considered
the norm.
In my book Immersion Into Noise (2011) I have mapped out a broad-spectrum
of aesthetic activity I call the art of noise by tracing its past eruptions where
figure/ground merge and flip the common emphasis to some extent. Immersion
Into Noise concludes with
a look at the figural aspect of this aesthetic lodged within the ground of
consciousness itself.[4]
Such
historically grounded, non-cognitive, aesthetic benefits of noise, error and
failure is what concerns me for the production and reception of art today.
Indeed, the paradox of a dada-like system of anti-systematic action delights
and energizes me, even, as it is the basis of artificial-life,[5]
an aspect of my current working practice. And unless we intend to return to a
pre-modern neo-classical naturalism, this funny, sometimes buggy, bound to
fail, a-life approach is the way into the future (as I see it): with its strong
emphasis on emergence.
And why not say it: this emergence is nurtured by mixing systematic rules with
non-systematic chance operations in the code, a code always subject to
modifications and magnificent failures.
Thus an a-life inflected art gives us the opportunity to think (or re-think) in
our own lives something very valuable for a successful life: the understanding
of life-as-art as a form of contingency that cannot ever really fail, but
constantly opens up new chances to pursue.
Joseph Nechvatal