Hadn’t been able to make it out to Machine Project in a while and thoroughly enjoyed tonight’s lecture about failure by Monochrom’s Johannes Grenzfurthner.

Looking at how failure is a crucial component in negotiating success in the digital world and, along the way, highlighting the failure of the movie industry, the failure of Dubai, the failure of Austria’s lack of history, the failure of the Coke/Pepsi battle, the failure of competition, etc., Grenzfurthner suggested that the one way toward a more transformative society is through play within the failure of technology (we can’t wait for a free market to sort all this crap out for us). Though his message was a playful one, I think the repurcussions behind the hacking ethos and the suggestion to celebrate failure – of, for example, the computer owner that imagines that his cup holder isn’t the right size, not realizing that he’s failing to use his CD-ROM drive correctly – are resounding and important . Look at the Monochrom “Brave New Pong” project as an example; the game’s players no longer fail since you control the ball and the computer ensures that it will never actually fall off the table, wastefully. Does this matter for education? You bet – think about the transformation that would occur within our students if they moved beyond the binary right/wrong & pass/fail mentality; what would it look like to explore and play within the twilight limitlessness of traditional failure?

Machine Project continues a steady smattering of awesome events. Despite the hefty price tag, consider joining me in a few weeks at their upcoming benefit.