Bio:

Dian Joy is a British-Nigerian interdisciplinary artist based in London. They work across a variety of mediums, including video, installation, sculpture, and extended reality. They have exhibited across Europe, both solo and as a part of BLUE, a transnational art collective they co-founded whilst living in Amsterdam. 

Synopsis:

Lamp

On September 9th 1947, a common clothes moth becomes tangled at Relay #70, Panel F of the Mark II Aiken Relay Calculator at Harvard University. In an event that would become as miscited as it is infamous, computer scientist and USA Navy rear admiral Grace Hopper reaches into the machine to retrieve the insect and tapes it in the official logbook, before scribbling beneath it “First actual case of bug being found”. As a result of this, Hopper is often cited as coining the term ‘computer bug’. However, the expression’s origins can be traced back to inventor Thomas Edison. 

This short film explores the indwelling navigational systems of insects that travel in response to the position of the moon. Using this phenomenon as a metaphor, the film demonstrates how embodied knowledge such as instinct and desire is thrown off course whilst living in a world of super-stimulation: much like the moth and the blinking lights of the Harvard Mark II.