SYSTEM_ERROR
A Performance Work for Bodies & Electronics
About
Whether biological or technological, no system is immune to failure. SYSTEM_ERROR contemplates our shared disquiet towards human frailties while questioning the increasingly dependent relationship between bodies, brains and technology. Animated by anxieties over ageing, death, and the ambivalent promise of artificially extending lives, this rich audio-visual-sensory experience explores both the capacity and limits of imagination to speculate about our future.
At the work's core is a vast, bespoke instrument designed by Alisdair Macindoe where electrically conductive tape functions as a live circuit activated through touch. Part installation, part musical device, part kinetic art, this intricate creation enables performance where machine and living body form a symbiotic relationship. Ultimately SYSTEM_ERROR is a meditation on connection—sounds generated by closing circuits composed of human bodies.
Collaborators
Awards
2023 Green Room Awards, Nominated for Sound Sculpture (Contemporary & Experimental Performance).
Presentation History
2022 Arts House, Australia [7-11 July]
Reviews
'As SYSTEM_ERROR creates a nexus between sound and performance, so too it asks where we are in the nexus between ‘human’ and technology.'
'… a mesmerising, futuristic masterpiece that ponders humanity and the magic of connection.'
Partners
Supported by Arts House Listening Room residency and CultureLAB. The project has also been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body, the Besen Family Foundation and Chamber Made donors.
Chamber Made would like to acknowledge and thank the following people for permission to use textual snippets of their works in SYSTEM_ERROR: Dr Natasha Vita-More Transhumanism and Designer Experience, Titus Nachbauer & Dr Anders Sandberg TRANSHUMAN – Do You Want To Live Forever?, Dr Frank J Vattano, Dr Thomas L Bennett, Dr Michele Butler Life Without Memory: The Case of Clive Wearing, Frank Theys TechnoCalyps.
