Hot Rod Biology

I guess the first, most immediate, thing that bugs me about it is the way it's designed. The subtitle to the book is "Unpredictable Graphics" ñ that unpredictable equates to 'messed up' I think is a mistake in that it seems so predictable, or obvious. The introduction text claims the benefit of error, mistake, malfunction, and chance in creative processes, and is laid out and type-set to 'look' as though errors and accidents have been left in.

I guess this comes down to intention perhaps ñ can you make a deliberate mistake? Gerber seems to think so, ". . . work is made to look like it deliberately consists of mistakes and imperfections (ie. intentionally 'messed up) . . .". The contradiction in this is that Gerber claims the value of the error lies in it's ability to create something "unexpected". The design of this book is so familiar I'd even go so far as to call it a clichÈ. The "mistakes" here look entirely fabricated, pre-planned. They don't have the quality of real errors at all ñ they actually look (to me) like they've been put in afterwards because maybe the thing looked to tidy?

While Gerber introduces various practitioners who have attempted to utilise chance, error, and failure in their work, she fails to really unpack how these ideas operate as generative strategies within a design practice. I find her use of Ed Fella as a model for this type of practice in design problematic due to the fact that Fella's work immediately became his 'style', and as such ceased to be exploratory. Her assertion that this kind of work subverts and challenges "a perfectionist status quo", might have been true a decade ago, but it's fairly common these days for mainstream advertising to develop 'messed up' graphics for mainstream corporate clients.

Apart from this though "All Messed Up" has brought up some interesting points in relation to my topic, and I have taken a few references from it which hadn't occured to me earlier. To end this I guess I just want to reinforce (to myself!) that I think the real value of accident and failure is in leading you somewhere 'else' (and Gerber does say this too). This book and much of the work in it all seems to come from a preconceived idea (aesthetic), toward which imperfect processes are put. Error, mistakes, and failure must be able to be more useful than simply validating a desire to create messed up images? Also I don't see that "making mistakes on purpose" is essentially possible . . . an oxymoron? Perhaps in fabricating error I just feel like you're always going to know, to some extent, what to expect . . . which isn't much help if you're seeking the unpredictable.

Specific thing brought up within the book that I'd like to follow up . . .

ñ Paul Virilio: exhibition 'Unknown Quantity', and essay the 'Museum of Accidents'.

ñ Robin Kinross: 'The Uses of Failure'.

ñ 'The Art of the Accident', conference in Rotterdam 1998. Website for conference, Deaf98, was programmed to 'break down'.

ñ Surrealists: specifically Breton's interest in liberating himself from reason. 'Automatic' writing. The 'Exquiste Corpse' game.

ñ Dada, Bill Burroughs, and Brion Gysin: their interest in random constructions.

ñ John Cage and Fluxus: 'Chance Operations', questions answered by means outside of one's self . . . designing the system (or process) rather than the outcome.

ñ Brian Eno: 'Oblique strategies'