Unknown Quantities
Edition 13

#VALUE!

2025

From the Editors

#VALUE! is an error code, raising its voice in protest, signalling a conflict between expectation and delivery. This mismatch, between the data the function anticipates and that which it receives, may be understood more plainly, as the moment of failure. For the 13th issue of Unknown Quantities, we decide to pause at the error, prolonging the period of hesitation that precedes correction.

UQ 13 seeks to reveal what may exist within this juncture when more time is spent there, when processes of expression and experimentation risk faltering in the presence of assumption. We have invited our contributors' to inhabit this evasive zone, embracing the friction of failure through gestures of anti-professional thinking. The return is varied, and often personal, united by a resistance to the institutional and hierarchical structures that govern creativity.

In a time when cultural homogenization and the policing of expression are narrowing the space for dissent, UQ 13 is deliberately flawed. Our approach to both editorial and design processes, whilst chaotic and unconventional, pursue an authenticity that feels urgent. The decision not to choose between British and American English, rejects editorial standards and functions to preserve our contributors' voices. In using Excel, the paragon of corporate productivity, as a design tool, we further harness an intentionally counter-productive exercise. #VALUE! is an error code.

According to Legacy Russell, "to become an error is to surrender to becoming unknown". With this, we invite you to become an unknown quantity, to scramble around with us across the slippery terrain of failure

Editorial

Ant Beltrán Eduardo Dias Loureiro Wonjoo Gu Harry He Samuel Christopher Ng Neyomi Parikh Harriet Shepherd Han Xu

Conversation Fragments Euan Witcombe with Ant Beltrán Against Resolution Neyomi Parikh Computational Exhaustion Oliver Evans Where Loneliness Breathes Michael Mui and Albert Ng with Wonjoo Gu Who Needs Heroes? Eduardo Loureiro The Professional is the Amateur is the Professional Silvio Lorusso Be Sour Candy Gao Out But Still In Harriet Shepherd FUCKSPOTIFY Niccolò Abate On "Transubstantation Part II" Cornelia Skrok Unprofessing Professionalism Samuel Christopher Ng Best of Both Worlds Myra Salsabila Alwi