Intrigued by our natural tendency to make mistakes, I decided to pull out every instance of hitting undo or delete in Adobe Photoshop over the last seven months and visualise the repetition of error. Each completely cutout square was a decision to forget and delete the current selected layer. Each lifted square marks a desire to turn back time and undo the action before it. All blank areas are representative of every other action, thus making the visualisation a record my successful and unsuccessful moves in in application rather than time.
By understanding mistakes as hindrances, I’ve extruded instances of undo as a tactile metaphor. Holding the sheet flat at eye level transforms these instances into hurdles on a running track, or stones on an otherwise flat piece of land. Catching light at acute angles casts long shadows as records of error or marks of mistake, while instances of deleting have removed paper entirely.
By understanding mistakes as hindrances, I’ve extruded instances of undo as a tactile metaphor. Holding the sheet flat at eye level transforms these instances into hurdles on a running track, or stones on an otherwise flat piece of land. Catching light at acute angles casts long shadows as records of error or marks of mistake, while instances of deleting have removed paper entirely.
