Making an error engine

One of the big concepts in Copy Copy Copy is the importance to those who want to create something new of using copying to create error over time.

Warhol’s printmaking (out of register is good) or Bowie’s use of cut-ups are great straightforward art examples discussed in the book. At Cannes, this year my chum Laura Jordan Bambach and I talked (and played) at length about the need to create and embrace error in your working methods. This, my friends is where novelty and originality lies.

So was delighted this weekend spend some time with the latest installation at Tate Modern’s urban Hall, Anywhen by Philippe Paren0.

At first it looks like many other such large installations – a floating fish, some moveable screens and video and recycled sound. And of course, a carpet to lie down on for full immersion (de rigeur, I’m told).

But then things start to happen. And they go on happening. Walls move, movies start, planes seem to be coming into land. Dogs bark. Walls move again. Never the same twice.

All of which driven by a combination of external conditions, the presence of an audience and a biological error-engine, hidden in a darkened room at the far end of the hall.

It’s a constantly changing experience, constantly varying and constantly creating new error. Do yourself a favour and spend half an hour with it sometime soon.

I hope spending some time there reminds you of the importance of error, variance and miscopying in creating the new and the interesting.