Syncom is a collaboration.  Syncom is a synthesis of two individual’s thoughts developed into objects.  Artists, Zach Taylor and Aaron Williams, both living and working in Los Angeles, are the current associates of Syncom.

Syncom’s project development is not thematic nor is its concentration arbitrary. It is a focus on a restructuring of regularly maintained conversations which begin by interrogating specific concepts with the intent of creating a form.

In the case of Excercises in Failure, four concepts are synced.
the human body; as a means of power production.
the bicycle; as a means of power transduction.
the record player; as aural transmitter.
the zoetrope; as visual projector.

Compositions or programs are determined by organizing sound in the form of hand cut vinyl records, image as zoetrope card loops, and performance as player gesture.  These elements are then transmitted during a live performance by the machine’s operator. It is a difficult instrument to play, but there is no standard criteria by which to virtuosity. Where the player may be determined to play a waltz at the correct speed, Mastery is determined by practiced player and practiced listener in simultaneity.

It is a mechano-interactive sculpture.
It is an machine whereby a player/operator sits atop a steel framework and operates a pedal powered series of cogs and gears designated to the rotation of two vertically extended turntable platters, and a series of vertically stacked zoetrope animation cylinders.
Both turntables, as well as the zoetrope totem, are independently operable offering greater sound and vision editing capabilities to the player. At the same time, all activating potentials are directly relative to the player’s physical motivations.
The sound itself is amplified by a vine like network of copper tubes leading to an arranged bouquet of phonograph horns.
The sculpture’s construction integrates the use of contemporary building methods and tools, with an improvisational, albeit mediated and informed, approach to design and exactitude.
Exercises in Failure, a machine not reliant on electricity,  defines and re-designs itself, as it’s construction process moves forward, as well as, when being played.
The energy of the performer, the selection of source material, moving parts, and  machine wear, expose all other unknown variables when it is in full-motion.

Through machine hybridization, Exercises in Failure questions modes of coordinating information and communication spatially and temporally.  By amplifying the natural differences and difficulties, harmonies and discords, we experience as we expand our personal understanding of communication with one another, Syncom observes the development of dynamic relationships.  It creates an environment in which the viewer can experience something fresh, as an artwork, and recognizable as a symbol of effort toward basic communication.  As player, audience, or sculpture gazer, Exercises in Failure has been constructed and created with the intention of situating the viewer at various levels of information allowing a narrative development unique to each individual viewer’s experience.

Thank you,
Syncom,  Zach Taylor and Aaron Williams