outoforderapp

We understand systems to be unavoidable, essential tools. They are the guarantors of the way we have invented, in order to exist in a complex –and so frequently overwhelming- world. In time, we have made of rules and functionality our natural habitat, eventually constraining ourselves to the status of instruments. A defined, predetermined logic is necessary, “organising” our perception -and therefore our connections- into known, codifiable paths.
Yet, once and over again, “our concepts don’t fit the data”. Our effective, well-adapted lives repeatedly seem to lead to unfulfillment and cannot displace the insisting -sometimes pressing- feeling that “there must be something else”. Is there, in what we have created, a possibility to connect with the world beyond the instrumental, to use the way we think and perceive as a door to go beyond usability? Must everyday stuff necessarily be automatable in order to be bearable? Can instructions become an invitation to awareness, instead of a numbing cradle?

Out of Order is an art project by Sofia Durrieu and an attempt to disturb the automatic obedience to the tacit rules that constantly regulate our perception, body and behaviour on daily bases. Through a system of instructions, it aims to “turn the tool against itself”. Or at least bend it a bit. It relies shamelessly on dependence: the engagement of the visitor is essential, thus revealing connection and participation as a condition for its existence.

In the App, this intention is maintained.
For synthesis purposes, we called the small actions that it proposes, “missions”. But they are really not. The are just reminders, a symbolic crack, an invitation to go out the standard grid a bit.