7/31/2019 Critical Load Ex-Files (vile/rats 2011)

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Critical Load1

What is it to fail?We noticed that you [Michael Lee] saw the need to put the word failedin quotation marks, regarding working relationships. Perhaps we shouldgive the same broad readings to collaboration. In the development ofour persona, VILE/RATS, the distinction between collaborator and as-sistant is as of now yet to be resolved.

Failure falls into four categories: 1) Dissatisfaction and Rejection; 2)Idealism and Doubt; 3) Error and Incompetence, and 4) Experiment andProgress.2 Our collaboration to date has tasted each of the four catego-ries. It is likely that if category 4 is intrinsic to failure, it is also intrinsicto the creative practice itself.

To be an artist is to fail as no other dare to fail.Samuel Beckett,Three Dialogues with Georges Duthuit, 19493

Category 3 deals with error. In collaborations, error is usually associatedwith fault. One interpretation is the interpersonalWho is to blame? Inanother reading, we can see error and fault as necessary to all change(from genetic mutations to plate tectonics).

Failure is symptomatic of a fault. A fault may be present from the startand may lead to failure under certain operating conditions but may notunder different conditions. Alternatively, failure is one of the many sug-gestive symptoms of faults. Failure does not indicate that there has beena fault in the first place.

The four manifestations of failure are: elastic deformation, plastic de-formation, rupture or fracture, material change (metallurgical, chemical,nuclear). The four failure-inducing agents include force, time, tempera-

ture, reactive environment. It is precisely within the extremes of one ormore of these failure-inducing agents that any new element can be cre-ated. The bastard child was bred from collisions, accidents and detours.Its monstrous growth is fueled by endless disputes and confusion. Eachsupplementation carries it nearer to the state of combustion rather thancompletion. Failures are often characterised by deformation. Yet defor-mity is exemplary and the moment of failure is often interpreted as theinterruption of the totality of knowledge.

The point of failure; to what extent does one fail?

To do justice to the figure of Kafka in its purity and its peculiarbeauty one must never lose sight of one thing: it is the purity andbeauty of a failure. The circumstances of this failure are manifold.One is tempted to say: once he was certain of eventual failure, ev-

erything worked out for him en route as in a dream.

Walter Benjamins letter to Gerhard Scholem, 19384

Brinelling is a failure mode that occurs when a permanent discontinuityoccurs in one or both mating members as a result of static forces be-tween two curved surfaces in contact. Not to be mistaken for falsebrinelling that occurs when vibrating contacting bodies in the presenceof very small loads pushes the lubricant out of the surface area.

The Theory of Failure (a.k.a. Failure Criteria or Mohrs Law) basicallyasks at one point: Does one yield? Metallurgists have long known that ifyou hammer the shit out of certain metals the crystalline structuresrealignthis process is called work hardening. The metaphor works for us.

The failureVILE/RATS arose through several conversations at dia/projects at thefault lines of science, art and philosophy. Over several months of investi-gation, banter, distraction, weve amassed a sizable collection of collab-

orative google documents ranging from lists, grievances, and amazonwish-lists. We dream of failure and we dream of Kafka.

Richard Streitmatter-Tran and Le Tuong Vi

Notes:1 Critical Load is defined as the maximum axial load that a column (mechanical, architec-tural, or possibly literary) can carry and still remain straight (without deformation).

2 Lisa Le Feuvre, Introduction: Strive To Fail, in Lisa Le Feuvre (Ed.),Failure (Documents ofContemporary Art) (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2010), 12-21.

3 Samuel Beckett, from Three Dialogues with Georges Duthuit. transition, no. 48 (1949); re-printed in Samuel Beckett,Proust & Three Dialogues with Georges Duthuit(London: JohnCalder, 1965), 119-26.

4Walter Benjamin, To Gerhard Scholem (1938), in Gershom Scholem and Theodor

Adorno (Eds.), The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin, 1910-1940 (Chicago: University of Chi-cago Press, 1994), 566.

RichardStreitmatter-Tran(b.

1972,

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Hoa,V

ietnam)developedTheMekongexhibitionwithRussellStorerforthe6thAsiaPacificTriennial(APT6)in2009and,

in2010,establishedDIA/PROJECTS,acontemporaryartexperimentinHoChiMinhCity.LeTuongVi(b.

QuangNam,V

ietna

m)isaferalchildraisedbyseaurchinsandurchinsingeneral.RichardandViwor

kcollaborativelyunderthepersonaVILE/RATS.

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2011MichaelLee