Joe Smith

Failed Handshake #1

Part of a larger series based on forms of failed acceptance, Failed Handshake #1 by Joe Smith is a diptych composed of a textual and a photographic component. The text derives from a series of works that Smith made about a digital code-based language, for which the artist created two computer systems that unsuccessfully attempt to connect, ultimately resulting in text reports for a series of missed connections formatted in the “language of a lament”. The systems attempt to connect multiple times, creating a prolonged action of a series of failures and laments between the system trying to make the connection and the system that refuses the connection. The other half of the diptych is a photograph of a young boy with an adult male hand reaching towards the child from outside the frame. The image captures the moment of the boy’s decision about whether to accept or trust the hand that is extended towards him. The space between the abstraction of the code errors and the transience captured in the concrete moment of the photograph is where the dialog of missed connections logs its attempts and failures.