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Most of the solidified techniques about our practice come from the natural ways of the web that have been there since the start. The answer is right there in front of us, in the website itself, and each step we take away from its intentions makes our creations weaker. What does it look like when you work against the web’s natural character? Well, it probably looks like this:
“It is fascinating that you can do that, but it’s really not what a website is supposed to do.” For example, behold Apple’s Mac Pro website.
Same response as the bear on the bicycle: all glee, until things go haywire, and you realize it is coming right for you. What is this monstrosity? Why does it feel like docking a spaceship? Why can’t I scroll? And why is there lag on my fancy laptop? What’s that sound? My computer’s fan? Apple’s pursuit of cool yielded an incredibly fragile, willfully esoteric website that’s good for no one. And I’m certain you can think of a few similar examples of your own: clumsy sites that work counter to the inclinations of the web. Back to the zen koan—if we see the mountains as mountains and rivers as rivers, these are the sites that try to be different, yet end up swimming up stream and climbing uphill.
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Technology forms part of all the spheres of everyday life, at least in societies with a greater penetration of the Internet. Mobile devices and geolocation have made possible perpetual connection, blurring the limits between the physical and the virtual. Probably for this reason, the everyday technological fail –the Wi-Fi that doesn’t connect, the program that crashes, etc.– alters the flow of things and generates diverse degrees of frustration and anxiety. Computer failure is a reminder, in the words of electronic musician Kim Cascone, that “our control of technology is an illusion, and revealing digital tools to be only as perfect, precise, and efficient as the humans who build them”.
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System failure
Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error is an entertaining book by Kathryn Schulz that analyses in exhaustive detail the experience of getting it wrong. Although the journalist concludes that this must be understood as an opportunity rather than an ordeal, she recognises that its importance is not the same if someone forgets where their car keys are as – the analogy is hers – as if someone believes that another country possesses weapons of mass destruction. These are “consequences so dramatically dissimilar” writes Schulz, “that we might reasonably wonder if the errors that led to them can have anything in common”.
Similarly, one can enjoy glitch art when it exploits small everyday incidents, but it is not the same when a computer system fails as it executes a word processor as it is when controlling the direction of a driverless car or the decisions of a combat drone. In spheres such as these, the perception of the digital error is more worrying and awakens some of the most deep-rooted fears in our culture: runaway science, Doctor Frankenstein, the mediaeval Golem.
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In technology, I believe it comes down to the power dynamics of convenience. To create convenience—particularly the automated convenience technology trades in—someone else must make our choices for us. In other words: the less you have to do, the less say you have.
Up to a point, swapping autonomy for ease is a pretty good trade: who wants to run the math on their accounting books or call the restaurant to place a delivery order? But if taken too far, convenience becomes a Trojan Horse. We cede too much control and become dependent on something we can no longer steer. Platforms that promised to bring convenience to a process or intimacy to a relationship now wedge themselves into the transaction as new middlemen. Then, we’re left to trust in the benevolence of those who have the power to mold our dependencies. Citing a lot of the concerns I mentioned earlier, those people are less responsible and compassionate than we had hoped. In pursuit of convenience, we have opened the door to unscrupulous influence.