Experimental Errors

This exhibition celebrates the unsung importance of experimentation — including experiments that falter, fail or refuse to behave. The show brings to light the material manifestations of experiments and projects that didn’t quite work, the things that usually remain unseen in the back of the studio or laboratory.

Rather than treating such artefacts as abandoned by-products, the exhibition asks: How do we measure the ‘success’ of a project in art, design or science? What, exactly, happens to the works and experiments that do not lead to a final outcome? What forms of knowledge, intuition and insight are generated through drift, divergence or error? And what can we do with these failed or fugitive materials?

In the spirit of transdisciplinarity, the exhibition showcases a spectrum of sometimes spectacular errors (and some successes) from the Commoners Press to the CERN, revealing a common thread running through science, engineering, art and design. It recognises that in experimental and research-driven practices, failure is not an ending but a key part of the process.

It invites visitors to encounter the raw materiality of research and the leftover fragments of thinking-through-making. In these ephemera, the fundamental forms and forces involved in creation and discovery are revealed. In a way, the objects ask the audience to reconsider the cultural, scientific and aesthetic value of things that do not ‘work’.

The exhibition will be on display from May 21 to May 31.