Fail Lab Episode 11 – Failure

This episode of Fail Lab gets down to the bone of the matter: Failure. The whole point of this excellently conceived series was to look at the fail videos all over the web (as everyone does) and instead of just laughing at the people in them (as most people do), take a different path and try to see the positive in the failure. Sometimes with humour, and/or with tongue in cheek, but with an eye on looking at things a bit differently. Now this special episode turns and looks the issue directly in the eye. I have the honor of being a co-presenter of this one again, again with the excellent Crystal Dilworth, and this time we break the pattern and have yet a third person as a co-presenter – Adam Steltzner from JPL, the chief engineer of the landing stage of the Mars Curiosity mission, you might recall. Crystal and Adam are on the left. (You might also recall that we teamed up for an event earlier this year at the Natural History Museum…)

Together, we talk in the episode about the whole idea of failure, making mistakes, and of course, experimentation. We highlight how it underpins all innovation, scientific, technological, artistic… all corners of human endeavour. We mention how fear of failure can be damaging – how society stifles a lot of creativity because of fear of failure and experimentation… and very importantly, filmmaker Patrick Scott (the primary creative force behind all of this series – he is on the right in the photo) gets to set the tone for all of this discussion rather splendidly with his choices (both visual and aural), and uses the film to also pay tribute to the spirit of space exploration (and the many explorers who have given their all for us) that has captured so many imaginations in the last several decades. Well done Patrick!

Embed of the film below:

-cvj