WHEN YOUR COMPUTER crashes, you get an error message, telling you that your computer just crashed. But what if your heart crashes? Or if you just can’t get out of bed?
Victoria Siemer, a graphic designer based in Brooklyn, imagines a world where everyday actions and scenes get a computer error message. The photo series is called “Human Error,” and she updates it on her blog Witchoria every week. She started the series about a month ago.
The photos look like Polaroid pictures, ranging from flowers to people to abstract nature scenes. On top of the scene is a modified error message.
Siemer was inspired for the series after Photoshop crashed on her one day. “I was working on a really complex piece and I lost everything,” she tells Business Insider via email.
“I was crushed. And the error message ‘Photoshop has crashed unexpectedly’ popped up. I ended up taking a screenshot of that pop up and the series was born, it just clicked. (Pun always intended).”
Each error is inspired by something she’s going through at that moment, and says that it’s “almost a form of visual-emotional synesthesia.”
“I definitely come up with the error message before I come up with the rest of the imagery,” she says.
Though some of the error message/image pairings can be seen as a little depressing — her favourite is one reminding us that we’re all going to die someday — others are inspiring, such as this one that reminds us to “delete inhibitions”.
Siemer majored in design at SUNY Buffalo. When she graduated, she thought she would be a print designer, and then stumbled into being a web designer.
“My life is saturated with technology,” she says. “According to my Nana, my first sentence was: ‘I have an imagination.’ Now I’m 25 and I’ve made a career out of it”.
Check out some more of the images in the series:
All images: Victoria Siemer
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