Faliurism Manifesto, another one of Can Yang’s works done during her time at Rhode Island School of Design, displays her own manifesto where she drew inspiration from composer and artist John Cage’s work about creating spontaneous, random decisions. For her own work, she used the idea of failure in “how sometimes things that are unintended can form something brilliant”. Yang says, “Failure is the kind of thing you can learn a lot from…It’s a good chance to arrive at something really new that you haven’t done before”. 

As seen in many of her works, she draws autobiographical elements with historical and religious investigations, in which she explores ideas around Taoism. The project exhibits qualities of playfulness and sincerity with the usage of illustrations and the colors: vivid yellow and millennial pink. This project took place as an exhibition showcasing the booklet as well as many products such as T-shirts, totes, and a CD. With the CD, it appears normal but when opened it shows a shattered disc. This follows her statement of failure: “that our control of technology is an illusion…digital tools [are] only as perfect, precise, and efficient as the humans who build them”. This work is interactive as it encourages viewers to draw a fortune to reassure them that failure is ok. The aesthetics she wanted to follow in the show was heavily influenced by Masanao Hirayama with the “new ugly movement” for the illustrations. 

                             

Bibliography:

https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/failure-taoism-internal-alchemy-united-through-design-by-one-very-talented-risd-student/

https://www.behance.net/gallery/59691811/Failurism-Manifesto