More discussions
exist on the field of glitches in music composition than there ever have been.
In music classification the glitch has even been elevated to the prestigious
status of having its genre. However, there have been very little discussions of
the practice of creating and capturing visual manifestations of glitches in
today’s highly signal perfect media and pixel perfect computer interfaces. This
seems paradoxical in relation to earlier trends of discussing qualities of
media and is testament to the fact that we are becoming more silent as
technology finds its own voice. The underlying theme also in this study, was to
find out what it is that drives visual glitch artists in their desire to create
glitches and to seek an answer to the question, can the glitch be an effective
medium in the ‘pantheon of artforms?’[1] -
While Glitch Music has experienced a greater amount of exposure, other
forms of Glitch Art have remained more obscure. Some have not been
conceptualized as art at all.(Motherboard 2002) This dissertation aims to address this
and surrounding issues.
1.1.1. Why I chose the glitch and when I started.
1.1.2. Relation to practical work
1.1.3. What I seek to do in this study (objectives
of the study)
2.1.4. Glitch and communications (layer & content – wanted / unwanted).
2.1.5. Visual history of glitches
2.1.6. Visual Characteristics of the Glitch
2.1.7. Not Net Art: Multiplicity Lack of Category
2.1.8. medium and artform. Polymorphism
2.2.2. Quarks: measuring changes changes the
content. Viewing in wordpad glitches the image
3.1.1. why its important, scientific usage. Popular
spectacle.
3.2. Formal
Aesthetics (Aesthetic Theory)
3.2.1. Subjectivity : differing views on beauty
3.2.2. Situational perspective, dealing with
contextual meaning
3.2.3. glitch creativity artistic process
3.2.4. Relation to artistic practice –
3.2.5. Relation to Painting – turner, richter,
Picasso, Expressionism
3.2.6. Relation to screen based med-appreciation of
dead media
3.2.7. Relation to Screen: Film / Digital – Semantic
(AI) [long]
3.2.9. Relation to Auto Destructivism.
3.2.10. Poetics of the Glitch : Chaos and Randomness
– autechre on controlled randomness.
3.3.3. philosophy of Imperfection
3.3.4. philosophy of balance In creation
4.2. Live
– Staged – Recorded – Synthesised
4.2.3. The Fetishists – The Nostalgics – The fringe
4.2.5. Glitch Music the Overpowering sound
5.3. There
will be robots – we will travel in tubes
5.3.1. Futurology doubt and speculation
5.3.2. The facts : diminishing trend of glitch in
electronics
5.3.4. Practical Related Fields – organic glitches
5.4.2. Artificial Intelligence
5.4.3. Practical Related Fields – organic glitches
6.1. The
power to convey meaning
6.2. more
formal studies in this area
6.3.1. Gustav killed the movement (ask)
6.4.1. advancement topology of error
6.4.2. last but not least the entertainment value
Its not easy to
begin writing an introduction about any area, more so when there isn’t a great
deal of formal writing or criticism on the subject in
existence or when the area is so varied in scope that it simply cannot
be dealt with effectively in the course of a short study.
However, if two
sentences and a question can provide a good outline and an idea of what I have
tried to write here, then this dissertation is all about ‘visual glitch
aesthetics!’
It aims to ask
some defining questions about the fundamental characteristics and importance of
the Glitch in conceptual and high/fine art.
In the realm of
Aesthetics, is the glitch something of beauty that has to be captured and
fetishised, or is it merely a sub layer of communication that we can do
without?
Alternative
introduction:
"…aesthetics
saturating the work, but no works of art.."
– Gustav Metzger, Leeds
Evolution Conference 2003
To
create a work of art that conveys meaning we must first study the aesthetics
and potential of the media we are working with.
Aside from my
own personal interpretation, the views I express here are directly influenced
by the discussions I have had with the talented practitioners of this field. I
have spoken to the ‘Artists’, ‘commercial designers’, and the potential
‘audience’ of glitch related events who in a sense, go against the grain and try
to explore, appreciate and understand an area which is rather difficult to
explain to the average non technology-inspired public. I am forever indebted to
these people and their contribution to this study. (and the contribution they have made
to this study)
At the heart of
this study, there are many questions, which go unanswered. In my opinion, this
is mainly due to the subjective nature of aesthetic study and the fact that
there can simply be no right or wrong definitive answer, if we are to examine
the creative possibilities of an area without limiting it[2]. What is certain though is that I see my
journey of exploring the potential for glitches as a completely edifying
journey, and one that I would like to pursue beyond the scope of this
dissertation. I hope you enjoy it too and if you feel inclined, please feel
free to express your own opinions on the Glitch Aesthetic Dissertation
companion site open forum. [3]
I guess like
many ‘glitch artists’ would tell you, my love affair with the glitch isn’t a
particularly unusual one, it is borne of a deep fascination for technology and
a love for finding out how things work and how things break.
I can give you
several examples of things I did in the past that may have influenced the
undertaking of this study, though they
are possibly not very unique. Like my
experience of playing Atari video games, drawing basic commodore Vic 20
graphics, animating on the Aquarius, hacking the keyboard of the spectrum ZX 80
or moistening the cartridges of my master system to add variation to games.
However
to mark a point when I was
seriously interested in this study, I won’t go very far back, and tell of a
nostalgic event in my life that led me to studying glitches. My story only goes back to a computational
aesthetics evening event I attended at a pub in Nottingham by Suppose[4] where I met a notable glitch artist
called Tony Scott[5] and the subsequently wrote a review of
the review for Live Art Magazine.[6]
Given time
perhaps, even the purely the visual attractions of the glitch might have been
enough to warrant and inspire my study in this area. But that night was very
influential in the events leading up to this study.
I suppose the
glitch in its simple form, provides a temporary window for me to escape from my
own self-imposed restraints of perfectionism and conformity. After hours of
interface design for a client’s website, the process of creating a glitch
provides me with much the same escapism and delight as say, reading a good
novel. Therefore from the onset I aimed to incorporate it into my practical
project work as a way of enjoying what I learn.
Many of my
previous works were concept driven and born out of a desire to communicate my
thoughts through devices and artefacts of technology. So I see this
dissertation and my subsequent related projects as an extension of those
projects, which explore themes like interference and alternative
visualisations.[7]
In relation to
my artistic practice, whether in painting, writing or music, I would like to
produce works that use the glitch as a medium to effectively convey a personal,
political or social thought or sentiment, while satisfying my own lust for
communications technology.
In the course of
this study, one of my objectives has been to initiate a formal discussion in
the area of glitch aesthetics and to hopefully examine the potential for a
glitch-based artwork’s conveyance of meaning.
At the same time,
I have tried promoting its recognition as what can be best described as a
strain of 21st “Century Pollack”. After post digital aesthetics and
in the avante gard of contemporary digital media practice[8] [* this is a reference to Lev Manovich ]
Primary
Discussing
glitch related ideas in relation to the practice and interests of friends and
artists seemed to be the natural way of finding out more about what
conventional tastes are when it comes to glitches. This was mostly conducted by
emailing, phoning, presenting, and talking face to face with those people. I
logged the outcomes and insight gained in the form of weblog entries[9], forum posts and calendar items. They
can be found in the appendix to this dissertation.
In terms of
consolidating my primary research findings within existing academic frameworks
and disciplines, I found it imperative that I try to correlate and incorporate
my arguments with the prevalent philosophical arguments and discussions on
aesthetics of learned scholars such as Adorno and Danto in their books
“Aesthetic Theory” and “The abuse of Beauty” respectively. The views of some of
the glitch music scene’s most vocal ambassadors namely, Kim Cascone, Autechre
and Beflix have also played a part in the later stages of reflection and
analysis.
I should
also mention lesser-known but nonetheless visionary lecturers such as Andrew
Darley and W Charlton who opened up new doors of perception in their more
accessible books, and notable personalities such as John Cage and Lev Manovich,
Paul Levinson and Benjamin Fry whose works helped contextualise my study in
other fields.
Secondary
Secondary
research came from wide ranging choice of recent publications and historical
texts in the field of aesthetics and glitch theory- I found that there seemed
to be a distinct shortage of formal writing at present on the practices of
visual glitch art. Books and sites which have been used are cited in the
bibliography and websites referenced also appear on the links section of the
dissertation companion site.
In 2002, as
part of my studio project work, I became interested in ways of mapping the
invisible (radio waves) onto the visible and showing loss of communication in a
very visual manner.
Sky showed
interference very visually.
[Talk about sky project and theme of
interference in relation to glitches and how all this research on the glitch is
ultimately going to result in my major project, brief description of major
project ideas here]
In
addition to contacting my friends who were glitch enthusiasts and
practitioners, I was also interested in the creation of glitch based artwork
and discussing ways of using those to convey meaning in my practical project,
This
was an area which I discussed with Brian Kearns of cosmiclocksmith,com and
found that we shared a mutual interest for.
Other
practical projects I was doing also benefited from the glitch, my project
stated described in this dissertation looks at censorship and cryptography.
{At
the back of my mind, from a purely fine art perspective I was always interested
in determining how the visual glitch might develop in relation to technology
advancement in displays / holography.} discard
and
most recently my Comlight one in a series of experiments that explores
communicating encoded information with light and sound between to computers
across physical distances. The 'light' refers to any lightweight communication
that is susceptible to noise. One of my preferred aims here is to explore the
aesthetics of digital communication in the analogue world.
For
more information see : http://www.oculasm.org/works
Artistically
speaking, to simply go by the dictionary
definition of the word “glitch” would be narrowing its scope too much. Even though
this field of visual glitch exploration has a small following, the found
glitches or the works created are vastly different.
We need to reach
a definition that tries to encompass the different works and practices
prevalent in the production and presentation of glitched artwork.
Therefore, it is
important to define two terms that delineate the most popular related
approaches. This dissertation deals mostly with the first but the first cannot
exist without a study of the Second.
The “Pure
Glitch” and the “Glitch-alike”
Is the result
of a Malfunction or Error
There
may be a great deal of scope in the discussion of where we can find glitches
and what can be classed as a Glitch.
Primarily, in a
theoretical, non art sense, a glitch is assumed to be the unexpected result of
a malfunction. The word glitch was
first recorded in English in 1962, during the American space programme, namely
in the writings of John Glenn where it was used to “describe the problems” they
were having. Glenn then gives the technical sense of the word the astronauts
had adopted: “Literally, a glitch is a spike or change in voltage in an
electrical current.” (John
Glenn, cited in American Heritage Dictionary 4th Ed (2000) )
So in a sense
the glitch has always been associated with the definition of a problem. It’s a
word used to describe the result of a situation when something has gone wrong.
Admittedly, it is also a ‘problematic' area of study.[10]
According to the
Motherboard[11] in their advert for the glitch
symposium, Norway 2002, "Glitch" is a commonplace expression in
computer- and networks terminology, meaning to slip, slide, an irregularity, a
malfunction or a "little electrical error". [12] in my discussions with Glitch artists
and digital artists, the glitch I described was also referred to as a Real
Glitch.
Glitch artists
either synthesise glitches in non-digital mediums, or produce and create the
environment that is required to invoke a glitch and anticipate one to happen,
as we will discover in Chapter 4. Because of the intrinsic nature of this
imagery and its relation to pure glitches, both in terms of process and viewer
perception, I felt the need to form a word that adequately describes this
artefact’s similarity with actual glitches and presents it as an obviously
separate entity.
Therefore,
Glitchalikes are a collection of digital artefacts that resemble visual aspects
of glitches found in their original habitat.
Note: from
this point, for the sake of brevity whenever the word “glitch” is mentioned, it
means a pure glitch visual and “glitchalike” as created -synthetic imagery.
In my survey of
known glitches, which briefly included digital video compression artefacts
found in images, “crackles, pops and hisses” in audio (Harger 2003) and alternative data visualisations that
resembled the pure glitch, I realised that
glitches are all a result of miscommunication or mistranslation when
transferring data from one environment to another. They exhibit themselves in
the surface of other media perhaps as a layer of visual communication that
shows something has gone wrong. They are sub media.[13]
“ …‘failure’ has become a prominent aesthetic
in many of the arts in the late 20th century. ” (Cascone 2000)
In the world of
perfect communication however, glitches are undesirables for which countless
error checking protocols exist to eliminate and discard them. They are merely
represented as a trace log of error occurrences that could be used to eliminate
further instances before they happen.
New advancements
in communication, it seems, seek more bandwidth, more resolution and more
clarity as hardware capability and processing power increases. We seem to have
no time to stop and appreciate the qualities of the glitch, as a textural
feature of digital media.
Maybe we can
find the notable exception in the glitch art scene that has a deep appreciation
of communication errors.
“Another aspect
it seems is that some superseded technologies become appreciated not for their
actual output or function but for the sheer pleasure of experiencing them – as
we would look back and enjoy a work of art.” (Levinson 1999)
Jackson Pollock
is very popularly quoted as saying:
"the modern
painter cannot express this age, the airplane, the atom bomb, the radio, in the
old form of the Renaissance, each age finds its own technique."
History:
Cascone’s
history of Glitch music and its historical contextualisation really emphasises
the role of the 1990’s techno – electronica culture as being a very important influence in today’s glitch music
genre.[14]
I was adamant that the appreciation of visual glitches goes much back
much further than the nineteen nineties or eighties and home computer retro
aesthetic imagery that is often associated with that time. In my very early
visual investigations I was pleasantly surprised to find a wealth of
glitch-like imagery and the notion of the accident in art spanning across
decades of the use and misuse of media in artistic practice. Most notably I
would like to draw attention to the cubist movement.
“…Pablo Picasso
and …Georges Braque splintered the visual world not wantonly, but sensuously
and beautifully with their new art”
(Pioch 14 Oct 2002 - 18 Sep 2002)
When you look at
paintings by Juan Gris, Georges Braque or Picasso, and compare them to glitch
imagery, there is a reflection that there could be a history involved with what
we see in the glitch world that relates to what the prodigal artists of the
cubist movement or other movements have done and the techniques they have used.
In the following
pages I have traced the qualities of the glitch to the work of some of these
artists in a very visual fashion.
[ big section
with most of the images ]
Gerhard Richter
Some may trace
Gerhard Richter’s [to be written,
specifically about how no source I looked at mentions the fact that his so
called blurs could actually be the mimicking of TV/press imagery in the form of
scanlines and interference]
“the natural glitch causes immediate
interest” (Eide 2002)
“our conception
of electronic media seems to have been very visually dominated and tied up to
the more general link between the visual and the rational” (Vanhanen 2001)
The glitch may
not be categorisable (Eide 2002) but present day manifestations of the
glitch and glitchalikes have prominent features that can be stated here.
Fragmentation:
“All
dimensions that are known are present simultaneously” (Grieman 1990)
It could be
argued that a glitch shows the whole, like the cubist movement’s “God's-eye
view of reality: every aspect of the whole subject, seen simultaneously in a
single dimension” (Pioch 14 Oct 2002 - 18 Sep 2002)
Sometimes in a
glitch everything is broken down either to its individual elements, or parts of
the image are shifted and incorrectly translated. This creates the effect of tearing up the image with a razor and
is almost always horizontal.
These
fragmentations also result in splinters and sharp contrasts in colour between
two regions of an image.
Fragmentation or
segmentation of the original image also relates, to mistranslation. Dramatic
tonal changes also change the mood of the image, and can be seen as a form of
fragmentation.
Fragmentation
also has the effect of drawing attention to an otherwise perfect image no
matter how subtle. More on this can be
found in the realm of visual psychophysics
http://www.klab.caltech.edu/~itti/attention/images/
Replication/repetition:
Partial causes
for programmatic glitches are infinite loops, division by zero’s and null
pointers, [check the null pointers reference]
The unanticipated
consequences, of such programmatic structures when mapped on the image may
result in the repetition of parts of the image. This added complexity also ties
in with the idea of multiplicity that is expressed in the aesthetics of noise.
The patterns
replication makes can also be likened to a digital wallpaper that screams of
the reproducibility of digital art.
Linearity:
Tony Scott (Scott 2003) signifies his liking of glitches in op
art, he is a fan of Bridget Riley’s work, rectinliear or very distinct line
forms. [more to be written]
Complexity:
[to write on,
randomness and complexity and its particular aesthetic appeal Glitches are
complex, they appear random, are they random.. refer to page 99]
Physical manipulation of medium:
A graphics file
may be incorrectly constructed (bad data) or damaged (corrupt data). Bad or
corrupt files occur as a consequence of one or more of the following
problems: Buggy file writer,
Uncorrected transmission error, Bad write to disk, Faulty processing (James D. Murray 1996)
Relate
to [Gustav auto destruction. Regeneration, degeneration ]
[write about how
I don’t think glitches can be classified or paired with net art]
[talk about how
the glitch can be a medium and artform and both at the same time]
[write up on
recent correspondence with Benjamin, quote bits of my own email and his
detailed and highly relavant response]
[talk about
quantum cryptography and the glitch, how measuring changes, or the mere reading
of a value in an environment changes the value, like Viewing a raw image in
wordpad and saving without making changes glitches the image]
[Relate to my
idea of Video Crypt, see appendix]
“The genre of
“glitch,” … emphasises the failures of hardware and software through misuse,
abuse, and experimentation,” (Veen 2002)
how can
something like that possibly be beautiful?
In this Chapter
we will discuss that question in relation to the ideas of others in this
chapter.
“The genre of
“glitch,” … emphasises the failures of hardware and software through misuse,
abuse, and experimentation,” (Veen 2002)
[to be written
also! In relation to points mentioned earlier]
we have already
looked at some of the intrinsic visual qualities of the glitch now we look at
the philosophy.
Whether its
Bachelard, Baudrillard, McLuhan or Adorno, subjectivity reigns and there are
plenty of counter [15] arguments to counter any claim made by
one person. The views expressed here are also a result of subjective thought.
The situation a
work has been placed in often hints at how we should go about reading it.
The exploratory,
raw nature of pure glitches is an unshakeable fact, in the process of creating
glitch-like imagery. It provides a plethora of creative possibilities.
glitch artists who do not stress the
importance of ‘process’ in their works or perhaps see it as a matter of less
importance are naturally concerned with the reproducibility of their works.
Glitch
art is an involved process that stems from an understanding of their tools,
computer hardware, display adaptors, storage media, etc.
-Patrick
O Brien, New York designer and director of TransFatty.com, known for his
diverse style and remarkable approach to film making. His work can best be
described as ‘visually arresting’ his Squarepushers' "Go! Spastic"
video sums up some of the styles I try to analyse.
-
Benjamin Fischer of Typedown, is a very talented multimedia artist and designer
who has been involved in the design and development of a number of successful
international media projects. since he first eloquently explained the process
behind his 'Neuordnung' work I realised that maybe a formal study should be
done in this area.
-
Richard Fenwick:
director
of typographic films, graphic designer and filmmaker Richard Fenwick currently
at unified systems uses the glitch in his work. Element of unknown invisible surveliance conveyed through
glitches.
We can see how
the glitch is used in music, dance and moving imagery, but it is now extending
into other areas such as dance. [Refer to frank Stassens video]
(Stassen 1999)
Other
interesting work in the field of organic glitches are Sounds from muscles,
tendons and joint from Norwegian celebrities is remixed in ten remixes (Larsson 2002)
[Notion of the
happy accident.]
“even the
obsessively rectilinear modern Dutch
Painter Pieter Mondrian left drips and faint wavers in his straight
lines to indicate the presence of the human creator behind the abstract
mathematical shapes. Michael Angelo Hewed his sculpture by following the grain
in the marble” (Briggs 1994)
Celluloid film and gelatin prints are both synonymous
with film grain, it's a well known quality of analogue photography and
cinematography, that has pride and place in the manuals of film aesthetics.
The aesthetic of chemo-mechanical reproduction also
has a whole culture behind it. The random detail is much sought after and an
image reproduced without these artifacts being visible is considered quite
bland. Possibly lacking in Walter Benjamin’s definition of Aura in Art in the
Age of mechanical reproduction.
Film Grain:
Spielberg says:
"Now the thing I'm most saddened by is the constant talk about the
photochemical process becoming a thing of Thomas Edison's past. There’s a magic
about chemistry and film, Sure a digital shot is steady. I doesn’t have to ride
through the gate of a projector. And, sure, it's as clean as the OR in a major
hospital. That's exactly what’s wrong with it. Film has a molecular structure
called grain; even a still of just a flower in a vase has life because of the
grain. Because of the molecules in the film, especially if you sit in the first
five rows of any movie theatre, you know what I’m talking about. The screen is
alive, the screen is always alive with chaos and excitement, and that will
certainly be gone when we convert to a digital camera.
[Films that use
glitches:]
Glitch
being a signifier of human interaction with computers often Wraught with static
[glitch
aesthetics in film, mention works I saw at the Bradford film festival and
Richard Fenwicks work]
[The reef advert, which I have]
[Waiting to hear
from odopod, who recently did glitchy redbullcopilot, talk about HiRez who did
requiem for a dream site and many others where the glitch figures largely in
the conveyance of meaning]
There are dozens
of examples throughout history of inventions that came about as a result of a
physician or chemist discovering something by accident, while they were trying
to do something else.
A glitch can
make a conection!
Let me give an
extremely simple example that actually happened to myself:
The electricity
supply is wrought with dozens of surges and spikes which manifest themselves
made the hifi in the turn off, I glanced over and I saw my infra red enabled
java phone, this made me think maybe I can write a java app to turn the hifi on
in the morning as an alarm.
irregularity
This study of
the glitch can in parts be seen as developing understanding of a fetish. Much
in the same way that “Fetishism manifests itself masterfully around the
automobile. the possession of ‘autonomy of movement’, ‘speed’, ‘power’” (Velásquez 2000) the core reasons for computerisation or
the subsequent consumption of computing periphery, can be regarded as a fetish.
In the
introduction to his book Visual Digital Culture (Darley 2000), Andrew Darley states that in the
nineteenth century The idea of the “artist as genius” and the distinction
between “light” and “low” form of art, was consolidated he then goes on to say
“within this evaluative framework” the newer technologically informed and
commercial modes of culture, photography, the cinema, the amusement park - came to be regarded as manufactured
diversion; mere ephemera forms of pure spectacle. Now consider the ever
changing world of software, no sooner than one standard or software tool is
adopted and learnt, the progression of technology and finished development of
newer versions of that software phase out the original, there is little time to
appreciate the fine nuances of digital media and even less the artefacts of
digital corruption, which are continually ironed out and replaced with
increased correctness and functionality.
[break the text
below down, its very relavant]
There is a
long history of "personal" relationships between readers and books -
one need only look at the association of the parchment/flesh page with the word
of God (see The Medieval Book of Nature. However, this fascination with the
"flesh" is not limited to ancient and medieval readers -- modern
readers can be just as attached to their books. Consuelo Dutschke, at the
Butler Library at Columbia, description of various grades of parchment emphasizes
a sensual reading experience that does not require words: "...the
chalkiness of English parchment, to the suede-like [texture] of German monastic
production, to the creamy feel of southern European parchment." Sven
Birkerts, in his rant against electronic technologies, movies, popular music
and the education system, The Gutenberg Elegies, describes his early
experiences with book collecting: "After I had studied each acquisition,
fingering the paper, reading the dust jacket minutiae, I would move to the shelves.
I arranged and rearranged late into the night, fully enclosed in the glow of my
private absorption. I might pull up a chair and just sit, tilting my head to
one side and running my gaze along the lettering of the spines" (Birkerts
48-9). Books are objects -- objects whose appeal includes not only reading, but
also touch.
In contrast
to this personal objet d'amour, the digital text is portrayed by most of its
supporters and detractors as bodiless. And, when the digital text is given a
body, usually it is only to contrast the ugly computer to the beautiful book:
"Nobody is going to sit down and read a novel on a twitchy little
screen" (E. Annie Proulx A13). But, must the body of the digital page be
simply an impersonal beige box?
(Bath 1999)
“Leonardo Da
Vinci insisted that ‘that painter who has no doubts will achieve little’, and
he advised artists to seek out inspirations for their paintings in the stains
on walls” (Briggs 1994)
The art of the
accident
On
loop-finding-jazz-records, Jan Jelinek seems determined to show that mistakes
can be beautiful, too - as formally pretty as if they weren't mistakes at all.
If something vital still somehow eludes him, it is because he manages to fulfil
his aims so successfully. Glitch's greatest promise - and one it only
occasionally realises - lies in its capacity to achieve a wild humanity: a passionate
intractability in the face of the demands of order, like a heart palpitating
wildly under the constraints of reason.
(Finney 2001)
zen
“The creative
person disposed to express Eros-order will be creative in one type of context
but may be very sterile in all other types of context. This could lead to
severe imbalances or at least to great frustrations. …a creative person
disposed to express Eros-chaos will be creative in one type of context but in
other contexts express Eros-chaos associated with Will-to-Egoness that leads to
self-destruction or destruction to others. The extreme form of this is an
artistic person who is aesthetically creative but anti-creative with respect to
human individuation; such a person may become an alcoholic or a drug addict
and/or may become so depressed that he/she commits suicide.” (Pribor 2002)
[Luciano Testi
Paul correspondence very significant here]
Part of the
Glitch’s long enduring appeal may be attributed to retro aesthetics, Glitch
artists who were children of the eighties and nineties may comment on this
especially.
[refer to Bruce
Sterling’s dead media mailing list archives]
Perhaps a glitch
conference would be a near perfect setting to discuss the range of thoughts
concerning the glitch in a formal manner. One of the things I found was that
artists working in glitch related fields perhaps perceive the glitch not as an
end but as a means to an end, or as a way of enhancing their understanding of
certain issues, Luciano testi paul mentions the glitch as a ‘concept that
brings certain issues about perception to focus.’ (refer to correspondence)
On the other
hand they may relate their work to their individual practice, an artist like
Tom Betts, might claim to be heavily interested in ‘process’. DRU 03 seminar.
Tony Scott might want to elaborate on the fine art aspects of the glitch and
developing an eye for an aesthetically pleasing glitch, while Lia + Miguel
carvalhais regarded the glitch as a component of their design process, which
they refer to as errors. Lia’s assumed mindset being pushing the technology to
its breaking limits, to see what happens and then using those visual artefacts
in designs for glitch musicians of the mille plateux family and force inc.
In 2002, Oslo
witnessed a unique glitch symposium, in their own words they were trying to
bring together international artists, academics and other Glitch practitioners
for a short space of time to share their work and ideas with the public and
with each other.
In 1998 the
Dutch electronic arts festival produced a book called “the art of the accident”
which not only catalogued the works presented at the festival, but also
included essays and interviews by the Symposium participants and distinguished
experts in the fields of architecture, music composition , science, and
biology. [16]
The notion of
the accident in art deserves its own account and in relation to the glitch, its
status is usually defined as the happy accident or an accident that leads to
discovery.
[two references
to glitches in science, appendix to the work]
Most glitch
artists either dabble in both realms of audio and image based glitchalikes, at
one point or other
There are many
live events that are themed around the retro aesthetics.
Gebhard
Sengmuller deserves his own section in the annals of appreciating glitches. His
work basically consists of an invention that revives the medium of Vinyl and
resonates with early experiments of capturing moving imagery for broadcast on a
physical medium Vinyl Video. I was fortunate enough to attend his FACT in
[why]
[accidents and
learning from them are a continual part of human evolution.]
Art lies in the
continual struggle to come near to the sensory side of objects. Francis Bacon. Statements,
1952-1955
[write about how
the glitch relies so heavily on visual simulation,
Glitches in
sensory experience.]
The versatility
of the glitch as a means of inferring messages has been largely unappreciated
and perhaps its best that it is left that way. In advertising we have seen how
glitches are reclaimed by the very people who’s advertising campaigns could be
boycotted by people like adbuster who may glitch their images on purpose, a
testament to its versatility and wide usage.
Despite what
some individuals saturated in glitches but denying it will tell you, I believe
visual glitch artists are the avante garde in the post digital aesthetic that
Lev Manovich defines. The Glitch can either be seen as a ‘radically new way of
using accumulated media’(Manovich 2000) or its can just be the discarded
artefact of communication. No matter which way we look at it, it has the power
to convey, meaning, boost sales or even alienate people.
When talking
about meaning in Pollock’s abstract expressionist works, Dr Francis V O’Connor
commented “meaning is the sum total of three things
1. what you feel on first encountering the
work,
2. what you can see of the qualities of the
work that made you feel as you did,
3. what you can know about the work's
imagery and intent, and the historical origins and context from which, and in
which, it was created.”
(O'Connor October 1998 and February 1999)
[my views on
meaning and how I have addressed it through my practical project mention http://www.usdat.us/tel-span/index.html The telematic chanel of the US department of
Art and Technology]
example:
screenplay
that uses glitches to convey death of two individuals, screenplay style.
The runme.org
software art repository was in the words of Alexei Shulgin a response to
prevent the monopolisation of Software Art.
[shulgins view
as expressed in DRU 03 to me, need to phone him and talk about how the
dissertation has developed]
glitch art is
simply glitch art and its particular aesthetics do not belong to one person or
collaborative effort. [refute the need for a manifesto, possibly relate to how
the auto destructive movement wasn’t as popular as it could have been because
of gustavs ideals]
I think it is a
widely held belief that studying errors to learn from them is an integral part
of evolution and advancing in any field. In popular contemporary media and
criticism, there is a great attention to document flaws, shortcoming and
mishaps.
Perhaps it’s a
way of deflecting scrutiny on ourselves in finding fault with others or with
others. This mentality can also possibly be a factor evident in the
fetishisation of the computer error.
There is a great
attention to document flaws, For some reason we also seek to document flaws,
Perhaps in terms
of defining it we are regressing from the core values of movements such
abstract expressionism as set out by artists like Pollock,
[needs
development]
Further
inspiration, reading and browsing.
Simon
Greenwold
What
does it mean to be a medium?
Digital
Fountain: http://acg.media.mit.edu/people/simong/fountain/index.html
Pointable
computing: http://acg.media.mit.edu/people/simong/pointable/index.html
Benamin Fry
http://acg.media.mit.edu/people/fry/
Bibliography
(2000). The American Heritage®
Dictionary of the English Language. Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company.
Bath, J. (1999). Architectures,
Ideologies, and Materials of the Page. Body Projects II: Digital Matter,
Digital Memory, a conference organized by the Humanities Research Unit at the
University of Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Briggs, J. (1994). Fractals "The
Patterns of Chaos": Discovering a new Aesthetic of Art Science, and Nature.
London, Thames and Hudson Ltd.
Bruce Sterling, T. J., et al. Dead Media
Project working notes. 2003.
Cascone, K. (2000). "The Aesthetics
of Failure: 'Post-Digital' Tendencies in
Contemporary Computer Music." Computer
Music Journal: 12-18.
Darley, A. (2000). Visual Digital
Culture: surface Play and the spectacle in new media genres. London &
New York, Routledge.
Eide, E. S. (2002). Glitch and Parergon.
Glitch Symposium, Live Art.
Finney, T. (2001). Set the Controls for
the Heart of the Sum. UK, Freaky Trigger.
Grieman, A. (1990). Hybrid Imagery:
The fusion of Technology and graphic design. London, Architecture Design
and Technology Press London.
"what
we are discovering is a new texture, a new design language, a new landscape in
commnications. As people become empowered with this tol we'll see terrible
things and wonderful things. we will learn from it as designers. Everybody is
visual, its in the collective soul." "or an accident will happen and
ou'll say, 'oh thats terrific, lets's go that way!' Then you're off on a whole
new idea. This pioneering, where you dont have an aesthetic and you don't have
a tradition , is both time-consuming and wonderful. To feel lost os great;
there are only a few areas in this very controlled industry where you can feel that"
Harger, H. (2003). Radioqualia webcast
from Cape Town. Evolution 2003,. Leeds.
James D. Murray, W. v. (1996). Encyclopedia
of Graphics File Formats, O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.
Larsson, J. (2002). LEDDLYD2 - NORSKE
LEDD, Bergen center of Electronic Art. 2003.
Levinson, P. (1999). Digital McLuhan.
London and New York, Routledge.
Manovich, L. (2000). Avant-garde as
Software.
Motherboard (2002). Glitch [intro],
liveart.org.
O'Connor, F. V. (October 1998 and
February 1999). Interpretative commenraries on works by Jackson Pollock (1D to
1K) : The Jackson Pollock Watch: Reviews and Commentaries A Gathering of Texts:
Concerning The Museum Of Modern Art's
Jackson Pollock Exhibition. 2003.
Pioch, N. (14 Oct 2002 - 18 Sep 2002).
Web Museum, Picasso and Cubism,Paintings of Juan Gris., http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/. 2003.
Pribor, D. B. (2002). Post Modern Zen:
Human Hierarchal Mutuality of Chaos and Creativity. 2003.
Scott, T. (2003). Telephone conversation
#1. I. Moradi. Huddersfield - Oxford.
Stassen, F. (1999). Hoek / Rumba #3,
Park.nl.
Vanhanen, J. (2001). "Aesthetics of
Interruption: learning to love the ghost in the Machine."
Veen, T. V. (2002). Laptops &
Loops: The Advent of New Forms of Experimentation and the Question of
Technology in Experimental Music and Performance. University Art
Association of Canada, Calgary.
Velásquez, L. V. (2000).
"Technology's Fetishism." La Revistade Investigacion Clinica 52(5): 569-580.
(reference artworks here)
[1] Something that was discussed
in an early email with mamduh@mamduhwaheed.com
[2] Two of my distinguished
correspondents, namely Luciano Testi Paul, and Spencer Roberts where also very
assertive of this fact.
[3] www.oculasm.org/glitch
[4] Suppose are a new media
company who based in Nottingham.
[5] Tony Scott, who maintains a weblog of found and created
glitches is possibly the most linked up person in the glitch’s short history.
[6] Live Art Magazine, Editor
David Hughes. Liveartmagazine.com
[7] www.oculasm.org/works
[8] Ed George. Phone
conversation November 03.
[9]
http://www.oculasm.org/mmdblog
[10] contradiction rules the
discourse of glitch art.
[11] http://www.liveart.org/glitch/
[12] Motherboards mention of
networks terminology is most notable in defining most Glitches, most glitches
that manifest themselves as audio or video artefacts happen during translation
and communication. It could be said that all glitches are a result of imperfect
transmission.
[13] Corrected by Stuart Nolan,
in a dissertation meeting.
[14] Cascone, K. (2000).
"The Aesthetics of Failure: 'Post-Digital' Tendencies in
Contemporary
Computer Music." Computer Music Journal: 12-18.
[15] For further reading you may
want to refer to Aesthetics and Subjectivity - From Kant to Nietzsche by Andrew
Bowie, Manchester Univ Pr; 2nd edition (July 2003)
[16] Thanks to Prof. Derek Hales
for mentioning this.