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#26 Re-Evaluate The Error
2009

Out of the mould

by Martino Gamper

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In your experience, how have errors affected your professional practice and what’s your attitude towards making mistakes?
Errors can critically affect the outcome of any work, but they’re also an opportunity for reviewing consolidated practices and routine ways of doing things. As such, they can be very liberating, obliging us to make new decisions, see things from different angles and adopt original solutions we would otherwise never even have thought of. In any case, one has to learn to face up to one’s mistakes, because they cannot be concealed forever. What’s more, it’s important to be honest and frank about them, if we’re to learn anything from them.

I never kick off with an idea from any firm starting point; I never work to a predetermined plan, which is probably why I find it difficult to spot errors as such in the first place. Whatever I come up with I tend to see as an achievement rather than a failure. Vice versa, when one works to specifications errors are almost bound to crop up somewhere along the line.

In your 2007 “Gio Ponti Translated by Martino Gamper” project there were a number of new objects you obtained by reassembling old items of furniture derived from original designs by the famous architect. Didn’t you feel a bit overwhelmed manipulating such historically famous works as those of Ponti? Weren’t you afraid of making blunders?
Not really, I let instinct take over. I wanted my work to be free of that steady and staid step-by-step process typical of design theory and practice; I didn’t want to start out from finely rendered drawings on the basis of which a number of models and prototypes are obtained before achieving the final version. I unreservedly skipped the initial twodimensional drawing in favour of a three-dimensional one, so to speak, that could simultaneously serve asdesign, model and prototype. Essentially, it was very much a ramshackle, hands-on process all the way, without implementation of any of those steps and operations normally envisaged and recommended, which have in fact been developed and set down to prevent errors from being made in the first place.

My impression is that the times we’re living in are dominated by speed and efficiency; there’s no room for error. The behaviour of younger generations tends to bear this out more than ever, I believe.
Errors are quirks and foibles and as such must be done away with. In a standards-obsessed society, how could it be otherwise? And yet, it is precisely in such a context that making mistakes and acknowledging them can be an eye-opener, revealing new scenarios and allowing us room enough to continue dreaming.

You now live in London, a highly stimulating and rumbustious city with great opportunities for making and exchanging experiences. And yet you come from a notoriously quiet and peaceful neck of the woods. Did the years you spent in Meran teach you anything regarding the concept of error?
I was only nineteen when I quit my homeland, a place where making mistakes is simply inconceivable. Where I come from it’s all so excruciatingly neat and tidy; that’s not to say that deep down there mightn’t be a secret desire for less perfection and more error. Anyway, I departed happy at the thought of having to cope with the unexpected, a new way of life, that some considered to be a big mistake.

I started working in Milan for a major design studio. At first, I was bowled over by the novelty. Then, two years later I realised I was in search of some other approach to design. I was really after something far more stimulating and risky; I wanted to break with conventional views and practices.

You were always chasing errors…
I was seeking something that would make me feel alive. Still today, for me it’s like climbing a mountain. You may know you’re putting your life at stake, but despite the danger you can’t help feeling engrossed by nature at its magnificent best. Really, what it boils down to is this borderline experience between running risks and living in constant pursuit of beauty.

I believe a real master, regardless of who she/he may be, never shuns the importance errors have in her/his artistic growth, and knowing such a master is a great privilege. Have you ever come across or had the opportunity of working with such a master?
I was fortunate enough to have Hans Hollein as one of my teachers in Vienna. He was always willing to put himself on the line, and he taught us never to be content with the quick and easy way out. Enzo Mari and Michelangelo Pistoletto were also my teachers in Vienna, and I’ll never forget them either.

Would you agree that your work “A 100 chairs in a 100 Days” is highly significant and emblematic of how much creativity stands to gain from errors?
Yes indeed, errors are a starting point in that work. It was a highly unconventional way of going about doing things, and in particular the way chairs are generally designed and constructed. I wanted to reveal to what extent errors can be built into a chair, and not conceal them.

What mistake would you like to be remembered for?
The mistake of having destroyed two-hundred chairs to make a hundred.

Interview by Marco Minuz

Martino Gamper

Martino Gamper hails from Bozen, where he was born in 1971. After studying sculpture and product-design at Vienna, he moved to Milan where he worked for a time with an important design studio. In 1998 he moved to London, where he enrolled in a masters course with the Royal College of Art and opened a studio all of his own. His works have been exhibited at the London Design Museum, the Nilufar Gallery in Milan, the Kulturhuset in Stockholm, the MAK in Vienna, and the Norwegian National Gallery in Oslo.

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