The Radical Capacity of Glitch Art: Expression through an Aesthetic Rooted in Error

Identifying Glitch

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Image © Stephen Lofstrom.

The glitch aesthetic is generally expressed in visuals that are fragmented, warped, discolored, and often filled with noise, as a result of technological errors in equipment or digital image codes. Mutations are seemingly infinite, varying between the unrecognizable; simple interplaying layers such as linear patterns; minimal to moderate distortions; and slightly shifted perspectives on an otherwise nearly preserved image.

To capture such decay of image data, glitch artists amass their materials from a combination of analog and digital sources — but the roots of glitch lie in analog technology, such as television screens and cameras that are prone to malfunctioning. There, the artist can naturally encounter visual error without having to primarily simulate the effect through software. Circuit bending, for instance, is a technique that an artist can employ, by rewiring electronic devices so that their behavior changes. A glitch artist can coax a disrupted image from the altered functions; he or she can create with broken equipment and make defective hardware the premise of their work.

“This is an extreme form of modification which has the potential to push the device well beyond design specifications, into unknown territory, through to points of failure,” explains Brooklyn-based electronic media artist Phillip Stearns. “Documenting the process using audio recording, video recording or still images is handy when the on-board capabilities of the device are severely compromised.”

Image © Sabato Visconti

While analog frequently remains the source of material and the mode that prompts glitch, the accessibility of digital tools increasingly enables artists to deliberately simulate glitch effects without being restricted to specialized hardware or wild chance.

“The chin-scratchers will tell you it’s gotta be made from the kit — no emulation,” says London-based multimedia artist John “KARBORN” Leigh. “I couldn’t give a monkey’s. I don’t care how you made it. I just want a story, a narrative, a body. My glitch is 9-inches-long.”

Another method of prompting glitch is known as databending, where the data of an image file such as a JPG is altered. Since the data itself is relatively easy to corrupt, databending is a popular process that also gives artists the potential to build a personal repertoire in their approach to glitching images.

“One of the easiest way to get glitches,” shares South Korea-based Canadian artist Mathieu St-Pierre, “is to download a video file from a torrent site and stop it at about 80%, and then play it in VLC or any other video player. You will get something messy! You can also try to open an image file in a text application such as WordPad. In my case, after I’ve isolated and saved glitched video files, I put them in layers into an editing program and try to further damage the imagery, and that’s how I get very colorful and distorted pictures.”

Other techniques frequently used for digitally producing glitch are known as datamoshing and z-fighting. Datamoshing produces glitched images through a loss of data during a file compression process, while z-fighting refers to the effect of two or more visual layers competing with each other, appearing in one layer as a result. These layers, constructed from fragmented visual data, can be from different scenes in a video or different sections in a photograph. As Stearns explains the effects, they can result in color blooms and pixelated smearing within a single visualization.

Image (top) © Sabato Visconti, (middle) © Mathieu St-Pierre, (bottom) © KARBORN

Evolving From Raw Error

Glitch artists resuscitate the casualties of image destruction as deliberate forms of communication. Despite the fragmentation of once cohesive image data, narrative can still exist, and meaning can begin to trace the familiar contours of shared ideals, imaginings and interpretations. Expression within glitch art is often self-referential, with the substance and story being that of the generative processes and serendipitous encounters that give error its form. There is, however, a gradual increase in the possibility for techniques and results that could give glitch art further cross-disciplinary importance.

This accidental artform has evolved in its capacity to express both intimate and objective narrative, not limited to simply capturing glitch as technological failure. Within an artistic context, glitch has become more expressive of deliberate symbolism, and can highlight a playful contradiction between purpose and unpredictability.

“[The] purpose of my glitch art isn’t to destroy my photographs, but to expose the mechanisms beneath the surface,” explains Massachusetts-based Brazilian artist Sabato Visconti. “To turn an image inside out and expose its entrails, to invite viewers to immerse themselves in this seemingly undecipherable space, to find reconstituted forms, the ghosts of an image, or a disembodied breast. There is an emotional component to a glitch that many don’t acknowledge. A glitch bears traces of death and impossibility, the fatalism of inoperancy.”

In its most primal form, glitch is a recognition of serendipitous occurrence without the influence of conscious aesthetics. Over three decades since glitch officially began its journey in visual media, glitch artists continue to frequently cite process as being the central theme to their works. As much as a manipulated image can have significance in its completed form, it is the development, or rather the destruction, of visual cues that holds personal representation for many glitch artists. Literal interpretations make glitch a natural way to express themes of system failure, corruption, loss of memory, and brokenness in all its forms.

“In provoking glitches,” says Phillip Stearns, “one appropriates entropic processes, intentionally producing artifacts. On one hand, this calls into question the glitchiness of the artifact, but then also frees it from being simply viewed as an error, allowing it to take on other significance.”

Malfunction is no longer incidental. As a result, glitch art enables purpose through its conceptual approach. And while glitch could limit itself by only by making statements on its source in technology, it actually provides exciting potential to communicate about the behavior inherent to this technology and the subjects it depicts. As a result, it becomes possible to overcome the stagnation of cultural relevance that comes with novelty, and harness the controversial elements of this artform to stimulate dialogue and alter our aesthetic experiences.

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