The series of 100 images entitled "Report a Problem" is the first part of a project about the relationship between humans, power, and technological errors. “Report a Problem” is the message that appears at the bottom of the Google Street View screen, which allows viewers to report a problem during the viewing of the place they are virtually visiting: missing censorship, wrong colors, random appearances. I traveled on Google Street View photographing all the “wrong landscapes” I encountered before others could report the problems and prompt the company to adjust the images. Common landscapes are transformed by Google’s unexpected technical errors into something new.
“The Other Shape of Things_Failed objects” consists of a process-based and ongoing series of sculptures. The starting point of this work is a collection of hundreds of ‘failed objects’: 3D prints that I collected before they were destroyed by 3D printing labs all over the world. These objects were considered ‘failed’ for different reasons: some had not been properly printed and most had distortions, imperfections, and glitches of various kinds.
Each found object Vavarella collected was first digitalized using a 3D scanner, then reprinted using a 3D printer in order to create a second object. This second object was then scanned, and reprinted, creating a third object. After each step, the mediation and translation from digital to physical and from 3D scanner to 3D printer produced further unpredictable glitches and distortions – which in turn constituted new physical artifacts. He has reproduced each found object until satisfied with the series of objects derived from it. The result of each process of mediations, translations and reproductions constitutes one series of sculptures.
