1
Find ten photographic images that represent a failure of some kind. The failures could be political, technological, economic, mundane, world-historic, funny, tragic, etc. Aim for a variety of types of failure in your set of five. Pay attention to how well the image communicates its particular failure subject. Find each image in a different image-sharing platform (consult this list).
2
Arrange the images in a sequential order that tells a story of some kind. Write a one sentence caption for each image to facilitate your construction of the narrative. The narrative can be historical, abstract, figurative, whatever; it should just be built as a linear order with a beginning, middle, and end. A failure grand narrative built by ten images of individual failures.
3
Fail to faithfully digitally reproduce the image. Make another version of each image that fails to accurately reproduce some aspect of the image. Think about resolution. Think about how image-editing software is used to correct and optimize photography and instead use the software to do something else. As you digitally reproduce each image, “seduce the automatic apparatus into making something improbably within its program.” This coaxing of improbability, this turning the software against itself, is the failure. The failure might be subtle. Think about how the failure of digital reproduction unfolds across the sequence of ten images — echoing, ignoring, contradicting, or otherwise relating to the logic of the narrative.
4
Print the images and assemble them in a set of folded sheets. Pick two of your ten images to reproduce in the inks of our risograph printer. Fail to accurately translate the colors of the original image in a way that undermines or subverts the meaning of the image.
Further Reading
Hito Steyerl, In Defense of the Poor Image (2010)
Legacy Russell, Black Meme (2024). synopsis and review
Vilem Flusser, “To Imagine” and “To Envision” from Into the Universe of Technical Images (1985, 2011)