NOT FOUND (2016)
7 scanning electron microscope photographs from scratches on a paper, and 1 paper
With a mixture of existentialism and irony, Not Found translates the logic of the digital error message “404 — Not Found” into the physical world. The work draws on the frustration of searching for something that cannot be found, connecting the logic of the error to the absence of answers, the uncertainty of existence, and the experience of loss.
The words ERROR 404 were written onto a sheet of paper by scratching its surface with a pin. Invisible to the naked eye, the marks were then examined using a scanning electron microscope. At this extreme magnification, the scratches become deep, ravaged landscapes, transforming a digital message into a physical terrain.
Seven photographs of these microscopic inscriptions are displayed alongside a blank sheet of paper. The message is present within the paper, yet remains inaccessible to ordinary vision. The viewer knows that something has been written but cannot read it, turning the search for the missing message into an experience of absence itself.
Not Found explores the tension between what exists and what can be perceived, translating a familiar digital failure into a meditation on absence, uncertainty and the limits of our ability to find meaning.
Not Found, exhibited as part of the exhibition Glitch, the Aesthetics of Failure, curated by Chel Logan at The Old Courts Gallery, Wigan, UK.
