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

Questioning Constructed Narratives

Image © Stephen Lofstrom

In his treatise Simulacra and Simulation, French philosopher Jean Baudrillard refers to signifiers as substitutions for reality. Anything tangible or intangible can be made to represent something else until it ultimately becomes identified as the reality itself — an oppressive and substitute hyperreality. In turn, Phillip Stearns cites Umberto Eco’s influential essay, Travels in Hyperreality, as reflective of such blurring lines between reality and artificiality. In this essay, Eco wrote about pop culture phenomena and the ways in which they perpetuate a world of illusion that has become entirely normalized. The primary concern identified by both Baudrillard and Eco is that these layers of representation are cultural constructs that are accepted as truth, so that a viewer’s perception is dictated by fabricated representations.

The acceptance of a precedent of meaning represents submission to the controlling motivations behind them or, as in Baudrillard’s words, as an abandonment of self. The expectation that artistic content be absolutely representative of something in order to be relevant perverts the individual experience of meaning. Emotional response, symbolic association and historical relevance within a work of art can then remain unchallenged, and the viewer becomes a tool of perpetuating the mechanisms of meaning.

“Trying to second-guess what will produce an emotional response is a fool’s guessing game. […] In my own digital work, before I went black and white,” Scott explains, “I tried to use color to convey themes and emotions. I’m not convinced glitch art was the right vehicle for this kind of treatment.”

Images © Sabato Visconti

Glitch art enables artists to not only experiment with the capacity to alter these meanings by visually channeling image distortion, but to also question the relevance of any absolute representation. When the same images are preserved in their original form, we unquestioningly accept the modes in which we receive their visual information; we interpret them based on familiar symbols, triggers and definitions. But corrupted image that contains no intentional signifiers is inherently useless. Glitch is naturally a strong vessel for communicating the corruption of reality through the experience of meaning. Not only do glitched images use the mediums that create the hyperreality Eco defines through pop culture references – such as television stills, photographs, and other digital artifacts – they actually subvert their constructed meanings through an aesthetic of destruction.

If, on the other hand, we are to perpetuate the systems through which we assign meaning in glitch art, then we are avoiding the potential of glitch art to initiate important conversation about the validity of these constructs. The resulting collision of intentional meaning and purposelessness within glitch art stimulates the potential of ambiguity. Instead of blatantly assigning narrative to visual works, artists can simply hint at it. It’s vague, it’s elusive, and it’s noncommittal, but it forces viewers to become active participants not only with the artistic product, but with the context that gives it shape. This shifts a sense of responsibility onto the viewer, as opposed to sustaining their role as a passive recipient of information. Here lies one of the most important aspects of glitch art — the viewer is no longer an accessory to the artwork, and there is no abandonment of self.

So while glitch artists are increasingly experimenting with ways in which they can communicate deliberate messages, the absence of meaning within glitch art is still equally relevant, even if its only form is as a catalyst for discussion. As a collective movement, glitch art is at a stage where participants, be they artists or audiences, can reconcile the paradoxes that have resulted from years of experimentation.

Images © Yaejin Lim

Images © Mathieu St-Pierre

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