29 x 29 x 29cm
 
Vintage 35mm Slide Frames, timber and artist pigment 
 
System Error investigates the fragility of the systems we rely on to make sense of memory. Composed of twenty-seven small cubes built from empty 35mm slide frames, the work echoes the architecture of an archive that has lost its content. Each frame is backed with colour, forming a coded surface that suggests structure, while the interior of every unit remains hollow.
 
Although each component is incomplete in isolation, together they form a unified whole. The object appears orderly and logical at first glance, yet its emptiness interrupts any attempt at resolution. This tension reflects my experience of aphantasia, where the framework of remembering exists, but imagery does not. The slide frames become containers for absent memories—a system designed to hold visual information but now functioning only as a shell.
 
System Error suggests that memory is never entirely individual. We all rely on shared systems, structures and objects to construct meaning from our experiences. By presenting a form that appears functional yet refuses completion, the work asks viewers to consider where memory falters, how it fails, and what remains when the images we expect to retrieve simply aren't there. It is an archive with the lights off: structured, intact, but ultimately unreadable.