System terror / System failure exhibition
Systems - complex structures that consist of interdependent elements, various theories, regulations and mechanisms providing automatic troubleshooting. They can not only be the evidence of our organizational abilities, but also our tendency to control everything around us.
A perfect system would require a flawless operation of all its components as well as the immutability of conditions in which it operates. Common systems, created after all by imperfect people, are usually exposed to certain internal or external imperfections - hence the "system errors and distortions". Some errors are like viruses that take a form of a host and mimic its features in order to camouflage. An error itself can also take a form of a micro-system, it can also become a carrier of a future system or a beginning of another system.
In a political sense, the system regulates relations between an individual and the community what, as history teaches, leads to various constraints, and consequently - to the totalitarian regimes. In such cases system error appears as an antidote to the ruthless oppression of radical agenda and ultimately becomes a basis of emancipatory revolt.
The concept of creating an ideal system is still current as it is reflected in constantly improving artificial intelligence systems. The question is whether a total and eternally flawless structure of an ideal system leaves room for human weakness? Isn't it definitively excluding the existence of the unpredictable dynamic living world? Maybe a system error is the last resort against a mechanized anti-utopia which is based on full control taken over the independent nonprogrammable will.
What is the role of art in the process of finding the optimal relationship between the uniqueness of the individual and predictability of the system? Works that are presented in the "System error" exhibition are realized in various media. The authors interpret the title in the whole range of its possible spectrum, from political, social and scientific topics to those remaining in close connection with aesthetic issues.
System error / System failure is the fifth edition of the exhibition cycle called Hallo Wroclaw 2016 which is connected to the winning by Wroclaw of the title of European Capital of Culture 2016. The exhibition in Cluj Napoca in 2015 will be organized under the auspices of European Capital of Culture 2016 as well.
