sys • tem \’sis-tem\
1. a regularly interacting or interdependent group of items forming a unified whole
2. an organized set of doctrines, ideas, or principles usually intended to explain the arrangement or working of a systematic whole
3. a. an organized or established procedure
b. a manner of classifying, symbolizing, or schematizing
4. harmonious arrangement or pattern
5. an organized society or social situation regarded as stultifying
Systems are intimately integrated with our lives. Our own bodies are infinitely complex systems. We are washed, clothed, fed, and transported by systems. We communicate through systems. We live in building systems that are connected by road systems which extend across the entire continent linking vastly different urban systems. Everything is part of a system.
Our lives as we know them are dependent upon the systems that we encounter but generally speaking we are unaware of these systems in the way that we are unaware of the air we breathe. They are unnoticed.
“For most of us, design is invisible. Until it fails. In fact, the secret ambition of design is to become invisible, to be taken up into the culture, absorbed into the background. The highest order of success in design is to achieve ubiquity, to become banal. The automobile, the freeway, the airplane, the cell phone, the air conditioner, the high-rise – all invented and developed first in the West, but fully adopted and embraced the world over – have achieved design nirvana. They are no longer considered unnatural. They are boring, even tedious. Most of the time we live our lives within these invisible systems, blissfully unaware of the artificial life, the intensely designed infrastructures that support them. Accidents, disasters, crises. When systems fail we become temporarily conscious of the extraordinary force and power of design, and the effects that it generates. Every accident provides a brief moment of awareness of real life, what is actually happening, and our dependence on the underlying systems of design. Every plane crash is a rupture, a shock to the system precisely because our experience of flight is so carefully designed away from the reality of the event. As we sip champagne, read the morning paper, and settle in before takeoff, we choose not to experience the torque, the thrust, the speed, the altitude, the temperature, the thousands of pounds of explosive jet fuels cradled beneath us, the infinite complexity of onboard systems, and the very real risks and dangers of takeoff and landing.”
- from Massive Change by Bruce Mau and the Institute without Boundaries
fail • ure \’fa(e)l-yer\
1. a. omission of occurrence or performance
b. a state of inability to perform a normal function
2. a. lack of success
b. a failing in business
3. a falling short
4. one that has failed
Unnoticed until they fail. Failure can be an act of revelation. Bruce Mau mentions the shock of a plane crash when compared to our experience of flying. Consider the recent economic disaster (dubbed by The Daily Show as “Clusterfuck to the Poor House”, I’m not sure of a name that better communicates “a failing in business”). The failure of the financial products being sold revealed a greater systemic problem and brought a sense of reality to the forefront. The same thing was being sold ten and twenty times over, generating fake wealth, but since this was just part of a large and complex system that brokers encountered on a daily basis it wasn’t questioned. Now that it has failed it is very obviously problematic.
At the same time as failure reveals, it also restructures. If a bridge collapses it doesn’t just dissolve into a pile of dust. It collapses into a point of stability. It is not the intended, designed point of stability but it is the new system that failure and gravity have found for the bridge.
Evidently, one of the most banal systems we encounter is that of the building. If we look at the definition of the word “building” we can see the extent of its ubiquity. Why else would the description of the basic unit that constitutes our built environment be so inadequate but that it goes unnoticed? The definition does nothing to elucidate our experience of the places we inhabit. What exactly exists between one side of a wall and another? Why does the building stand? How does the water reach my shower? What is the implied relationship between myself and the person living in the apartment adjacent to mine? These are things which most of us do not consider. It is only when these systems fail that they are called to our attention.
At the moment I’m drawing buildings in a state of failure. The obvious failure is structural but there are also geographical and social failures to evidence. The collapsed building has been abandoned to its fate. It will either continue to become a ruin or it will be torn down and replaced.
A primary part of the interest for me with collapsed buildings comes from being an architect. In architecture we are ultimately concerned with making things work. Effort, discourse, and capital are all oriented towards success. Which of course means that failure is always present but rarely or never addressed. It is not really permissible in the field of architecture to explore the topic of failure without a specific attempt to resolve the problems revealed. Art allows for that freedom.
Getting back to systems briefly, it is worth noting that systems convey to us a sense of rationality, order, functionality, and efficiency. However, these connotations are not integral to what a system is. It is entirely possible to have a system which thwarts itself over and over again. It is possible to have a system which completes its task in the most round-about manner possible. This funny disconnect between connotation and possibility is one that I would like to address at some point in my work.
I currently have several drawings in progress at different scales (from 9”x12” to 8’x9’). I also have plans for several different types of drawings using different graphic conventions. I want to come at the topic of systems and failure from several different conceptual viewpoints and work with those views in an appropriate medium, so I am also considering objects and installations in addition to drawings. Ultimately I’d like to have enough work to have a solo show on the topic of systems and failure.
In order to realize this goal I simply plan on continuing to work. There are other details that will need to be worked out such as venue, publicity, and installation but the bulk of what is needed is more work. So, I will continue to ask questions and explore the topics I have defined and by the end of the year I will at least have enough to fill a small room, although it would be nice to fill a larger one.
