Exquisite Errors: DMCO-I

That the Twentieth century was a time of profound contradictions is well known to all: free thinking vs. political control, green consciousness vs. rampant consumerism, Beatles vs. Rolling Stones are just some of the pairs of opposites that have swung the pendulum of the world in recent decades, and that still govern life in our society. Even in science, we have witnessed an extreme variety of thoughts: in the field of neurology, for example, we move from acceptance of mistakes as evidence of our true desires, of which slips of the tongue and blunders are revealing elements (Sigmund Freud), to the classification of each behavioural variation from a predetermined standard within the symptomatology of a precise syndrome, as in the case of ADHD (Attention-Deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder). 

Ten years ago, Barry van der Rijt was diagnosed with ADHD. I guess that living with this label and constantly feeling "different" is not easy. But perhaps it's not even so tragic and debilitating, as we "normal" people tend to imagine. So, where is the norm? And where the exception?

The solution to these questions can become an intriguing exploration, if who responds is a visual artist and experimental filmmaker. Exquisite Errors fits into the crack between the rule and the mistake and re-read this unresolved contradiction under the LCD light of our century. Translating the issues above into the field of digital images, more specifically into the interruptions which can occur in digital movie playback, van der Rijt provokes us by posing an apparently rhetoric question: how much can a glitch in the screening of a movie due to a coding problem be annoying? Very much, we immediately answer. The problem has to be eliminated. But it can also be a charming moment and open up new fields of view, he suggests.

Following this intuition, he certainly did not lack of the attention (and patience) necessary to recreate twenty different types of digital dysfunctions, collect hundreds of images and classify them into a book according to a "Codec Order" concept.

The result is a diagnostic imaging of our computer's deviance, that captures our gaze with its brilliant colors and at the same time raises a bitter smile on our faces, if we think that not so long ago the same treatment was reserved by Cesare Lombroso to "criminals by birth" and today is the basis of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, from which the book takes its inspiration.

The message that Barry van der Rijt leaves us is that, in order to evolve, we need the standard as much as its negation. The oversight - along with our ability to catch it and not discard it - is the joint ring between the two parties.

Buy the book here