Error_500_Cistem_Failure
text
CISTEM FAILURE (2023)
pen on graph paper
183 x 225 mm
Error_500_Cistem_Failure (2023) threads the the fine-line between accessibility and inaccessibility on the internet. As an intermittent luddite, Herlihy writes through their algorithmically chaotic cognitive synapses.
As a result, this text gently brings the reader into their hyper fixation with the Wachowski sisters’ cinematic trilogy, the Matrix. Coincidentally, the initial film (1999) was released in Irish cinemas six days shy of the island’s eighth anniversary of internet connection. Thinking through failed systems, Herlihy explores Marquis Bey’s revisitations of Cáel M. Keegan’s iconic theoretical mediation of The Matrix’s final scene. Here, Bey reiterates that the coded layers of “SYSTEM FAILURE” is, in fact, the gender binary, or as they coin: the cistem—the system of cisgender.
Using web-accessibility-tools provided by Fnnegan Shannan and Bojana Coklyts’s iconic Alt-Text as Poetry Workbook, Herlihy recalls a moment when an image documenting their performance, i’d rather be a fag than be your bird (2022), was shadow banned as a result of the image description not ‘aligning with community guidelines’. The image description opened: “Léann, a white fag with a dark brown mullet is positioned in a horizontal lounging pose.” Inspired by Bey, Herlihy indulges in the wishful thinking that the bodily mechanism of the AI mediator entered into an Error_500_Cistem_Failure after stumbling upon the trans*faggotry of my image description. Evidently from the numerous shadowbans received since, Herlihy has not changed the ways in which they give myself to language.
As a result, this text gently brings the reader into their hyper fixation with the Wachowski sisters’ cinematic trilogy, the Matrix. Coincidentally, the initial film (1999) was released in Irish cinemas six days shy of the island’s eighth anniversary of internet connection. Thinking through failed systems, Herlihy explores Marquis Bey’s revisitations of Cáel M. Keegan’s iconic theoretical mediation of The Matrix’s final scene. Here, Bey reiterates that the coded layers of “SYSTEM FAILURE” is, in fact, the gender binary, or as they coin: the cistem—the system of cisgender.
Using web-accessibility-tools provided by Fnnegan Shannan and Bojana Coklyts’s iconic Alt-Text as Poetry Workbook, Herlihy recalls a moment when an image documenting their performance, i’d rather be a fag than be your bird (2022), was shadow banned as a result of the image description not ‘aligning with community guidelines’. The image description opened: “Léann, a white fag with a dark brown mullet is positioned in a horizontal lounging pose.” Inspired by Bey, Herlihy indulges in the wishful thinking that the bodily mechanism of the AI mediator entered into an Error_500_Cistem_Failure after stumbling upon the trans*faggotry of my image description. Evidently from the numerous shadowbans received since, Herlihy has not changed the ways in which they give myself to language.
“In their groundbreaking book, Cistem Failure: Essays on Blackness and Cisgender, Marquis Bey revisits Cáel M. Keegan’s iconic theoretical mediation of The Matrix’s final scene. Here, Bey reiterates that the coded layers of “SYSTEM FAILURE” is, in fact, the gender binary, or as they coin: the cistem—the system of cisgender. Further, Bey adequately states that the gender binary is the system structuring how we are believed to be able to exist and, deviating from such, initiates CISTEM FAILURE.
Inspired by Bey, I wish to indulge in the wishful thinking that the bodily mechanism of the AI mediator entered into an Error_500_Cistem_Failure after stumbling upon the trans*faggotry of my image description. Evidently from the numerous shadow-bans received since, I have not changed the ways in which I give myself to language. I take that burden, for it is a burden that is intimidatingly relevant and, in its burdensomeness, monumentally transformative. And please, I dare you to do the same.”
Publisher: Art Academy of Latvia
Editor: Katie Zazenski
Project Manager: Kristaps Ancāns
Designer: Armands Zelčs
Texts: Léann Herlihy, Tonatiuh López and Katie Zazenski
Visual Essays: students of MA POST, Art Academy of Latvia
More information here ︎︎︎
Originally commissioned by The Art Academy of Latvia, Error_500_Cistem_Failure (2023) is featured in the publication POST: Prodiction No. 2 of ∞. This publication is edited by Katie Zazenski with texts by Léann Herlihy and Tonatiuh López , and visual essays from the students of MA POST, Art Academy of Latvia, The Creative Industry and Growth Management - Latvian Culture Academy, and the New Media Art and Design program from Liepāja University. The publication was launched at Zuzeum Art Centre, Riga in December 2023.
Editor: Katie Zazenski
Project Manager: Kristaps Ancāns
Designer: Armands Zelčs
Texts: Léann Herlihy, Tonatiuh López and Katie Zazenski
Visual Essays: students of MA POST, Art Academy of Latvia
More information here ︎︎︎
Originally commissioned by The Art Academy of Latvia, Error_500_Cistem_Failure (2023) is featured in the publication POST: Prodiction No. 2 of ∞. This publication is edited by Katie Zazenski with texts by Léann Herlihy and Tonatiuh López , and visual essays from the students of MA POST, Art Academy of Latvia, The Creative Industry and Growth Management - Latvian Culture Academy, and the New Media Art and Design program from Liepāja University. The publication was launched at Zuzeum Art Centre, Riga in December 2023.