Glitch Studies Manifesto •
Rosa Menkman •
2009/2010 •
https://beyondresolution.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com •


Rmenkman@gmail.com
.
Amsterdam/Cologne, 2009/2010
http://rosa-menkman.blogspot.com
The  dominant,  continuing  search  for  a 
noiseless channel has been, and will always 
be  no  more  than  a  regrettable,  ill-fated 
dogma.
Even  though  the  constant  search  for  complete 
transparency  brings  newer,  ‘better’  media,  every  one 
of  these  new  and  improved  technologies  will  always 
have their own fingerprints of imperfection. While 
most  people  experience  these  fingerprints  as 
negative  (and  sometimes  even  as  accidents)  I 
emphasize  the  positive  consequences  of  these 
imperfections  by  showing  the  new  opportunities  they 
facilitate. 
In  the  beginning  there  was  noise.  Then the artist  moved  from 
the grain of celluloid to the magnetic distortion and scanning 
lines  of  the  cathode  ray  tube.  he  wandered  the  planes  of 
phosphor  burn-in,  rubbed  away  dead  pixels  and  now  makes 
performances based on the cracking of LCD screens. 
 The elitist discourse of the upgrade is a dogma widely pursued 
by the naive victims of a persistent upgrade culture. The consumer 
only  has  to  dial 
#1-800 
to  stay  on  top  of  the 
technological  curve, 
the 
waves  of  both  euphoria 
and  disappointment.  
The 
user  has  to  realize 
that  improving  is 
nothing  more 
than  a  proprietary  protocol,  a  deluded 
consumer myth 
about  progression  towards  a  holy  grail  of 
perfection.
Dispute 
the  operating  templates  of 
creative  practice;  fight 
genres and expectations!
I feel stuck in the membranes of knowledge, governed 
by social conventions and acceptances. As an artist I 
strive  to  reposition these  membranes;  I  do not  feel 
locked into one medium or between contradictions like 
real  vs.  virtual  or  digital  vs.  analog.  I  surf  the 
waves of technology, the art of artifacts. 
The  quest  for  complete  transparency  has  changed  the 
computer system  into a highly complex assemblage  that 
is  often  hard  to  penetrate  and  sometimes  even 
completely closed off. This system consists of layers 
of  obfuscated  protocols  that  find  their  origin  in 
ideologies,  economies,  political  hierarchies  and 
social conventions, which are subsequently operated by 
different actors.
 Some artists set out to elucidate and deconstruct 
the hierarchies of these systems of assemblage. They do 
not work in (binary) opposition to what is inside the 
flows  (the  normal  uses  of  the  computer)  but  practice 
their art on the border of these flows. Sometimes, they 
use  the  computers’  inherent  maxims  as  a  façade,  to 
trick  the  audience into a flow of certain  expectation 
that the artwork subsequently rapidly breaks out of. As 
a  result,  the  spectator  is  forced  to  acknowledge  that 
the  use  of  the  computer  is  based  on  a  genealogy  of 
conventions, while in reality the computer is a machine 
that can be  bend  or used in  many  different ways. With 
the  creation  of  breaks  within  politics  and  social  and 
economical conventions, the audience may become aware of 
the  preprogrammed  patterns.  In  this  way,  a  distributed 
awareness of a new interaction gestalt can take form.
Get 
away  from  the  established  action  scripts  and 
join the avant-garde of the unknown. Become a 
nomad of noise artifacts!
There are three occasions in which the static, linear notion of transmitting 
information  can  be  interrupted.  I  use  these  instances  to  exploit  noise 
artifacts,  that  I  sub-divide  as  glitch,  encoding  /  decoding  (of  which 
compression is the most ordinary form) and feedback artifacts.
Etymologically, the term “noise” refers to states of aggression, alarm and 
powerful sound phenomena  in nature ('rauschen'),  such  as storm, thunder 
and the roaring sea. But when noise is explored within a social context, 
the term is often used as a figure of speech and as such has many more 
meanings. Sometimes, noise stands for unaccepted sounds: 
not
 music, 
not
valid information or what is 
not
 a message. Noise can also stand for a 
(often undesirable, unwanted, other and unordered) disturbance, break 
or  addition  within  the  signal  of  useful  data.  Here  noise  exists 
within the void opposite to what (already) has a meaning. Whichever 
way  noise is defined, the  negative  definition  also  has  a positive 
consequence:  it  helps  by  (re)defining  its  opposite  (the  world  of 
meaning, the norm, regulation, goodness, beauty and so on). 
Noise  thus  exists  as  a 
paradox;  while  it  is  often 
negatively  defined,  it  is 
also  a  positive,  generative 
quality (that is present in 
any  communication  medium).  The 
voids generated by a break 
are  not only a lack  of  meaning, 
but  also  powers  that 
force  the  reader  to  move  away 
from  the  traditional 
discourse  around  the  technology, 
and  to  open  it  up. 
Through  these  voids,  artists  and 
spectators   can 
understand the politics behind the 
code  and  voice  a 
critique towards the digital media. 
It  can  be  a  source 
for new  patterns, anti-patterns  and 
new  possibilities 
that  often  exist  on  the  border  or 
membrane. 
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Use 
the 
glitch  as 
an  exoskeleton 
of progress.
The  glitch  is  a  wonderful  experience  of  an 
interruption that  shifts an object away from its 
ordinary  form  and  discourse.  For  a  moment  I  am 
shocked, lost and in awe, asking myself what this 
other  utterance  is,  how  was  it  created.  Is  it 
perhaps  ...a  glitch?  But  once  I  named  it,  the 
momentum -the glitch- is no more... 
But  somewhere  within  the  destructed  ruins  of  meaning 
hope  exists;  a  triumphal  sensation  that  there  is 
something  more  than  just  devastation.  A  negative 
feeling makes place for an intimate, personal experience 
of  a  machine  (or  program),  a  system  showing  its 
formations,  inner  workings  and  flaws.  As  a  holistic 
celebration  rather  than  a  particular  perfection  the 
glitch can  reveal a  new opportunity,  a spark  of creative 
energy  that  indicates  that  something  new  is  about  to  be 
created. 
The glitch has no solid form or state through time; it is 
often  perceived  as  an  unexpected  and  abnormal  mode  of 
operandi,  a  break  from  (one  of)  the  many  flows  (of 
expectations)  within  a  technological  system.  But  as  the 
understanding of a glitch changes when it is being named, so 
does  the  equilibrium  of  the  (former)  glitch  itself:  the 
original  experience  of  a  rupture moved passed its momentum 
and vanished into a realm of new conditions. The glitch is a 
new and ephemeral, personal experience.
Use bends 
and breaks as a metaphor for difference
As an artist, I find catharsis in disintegration, ruptures and cracks. I 
manipulate, bend and break any medium towards the point where it becomes 
something new. This is what I call glitch art. Even so, to me, the word 
‘glitch’  in  ‘glitch  art’  means  something  slightly  different  than  the 
term ‘glitch’. 
The  glitch  art  genre  moves  like  the  weather;  sometimes  it  evolves  very 
slowly  while  at  other  times  it  can  strike  like  lightning.  The  art  works 
within this realm can be disturbing, provoking and horrifying.  Beautifully 
dangerous,  they  can  at  once  take  all  the  tensions  of  other  possible 
compositions away. These works stretch boundaries and generate novel modes; 
they  break  open  previously  sealed  politics  and  force  a  catharsis  of 
conventions, norms and believes. 
 Glitch art is often about relaying the membrane of the normal, to create 
a new protocol after shattering an earlier one. The perfect glitch shows how 
destruction  can  change  into  the  creation  of  something  original.  Once  the 
glitch  is  understood  as  an  alternative  way  of  representation  or  a  new 
language, its tipping point has passed and the essence of its glitch-being is 
vanished.  The  glitch  is  no  longer  an  art  of  rejection,  but  a  shape  or 
appearance that is recognized as a novel form (of art). Artists that work with 
glitch processes are therefore often hunting for the fragile equilibrium; they 
search  for  the point when a new  form  is  born  from  the  blazed ashes of its 
precursor.
Even so, glitch art is not always (or by everyone) experienced as an art of 
the  momentum;  many  works  have  already  passed  their  tipping  point.  This  is 
because glitch  art exists within different systems; for instance the system 
of production and  the  system of reception.  Not  only the artist  who creates 
the  work  of glitch  art  is  responsible  for  the  glitch.  The  'foreign'  input 
(wrongly  encoded  syntaxes  that  lead  to  forbidden 
leakages  and  data  promiscuity),  the hardware  and 
the software (the 'channel' that shows functional? 
collisions) and the audience (who is in charge of 
the  reception,  the  decoding)  can  also  be 
responsible.  All  these  actors  are  positioned 
within different (but sometimes overlapping) flows 
in  which  the  final  product  can  be  described  or 
recognized  as glitch art.  This  is  why an intended 
error can still be called glitch art and why glitch 
art  is  not  always  just  a  personal  experience  of 
shock,  but  has  also  become  a  genre;  a  schematic 
metaphor  for  a  way  of  expression,  that  depends  on 
multiple actors. 
Realize  that 
the gospel  of glitch  art also tells  about new 
norms implemented by corruption.
Over time some of the glitches I made developed into personal archetypes; I 
feel that they have become ideal examples or models of my work. Moreover, 
some of the techniques I (and others) used became easily reproducible for 
other people, either because I explained my working process, or sometimes 
because  of  the  development  of  a  software  or  plugin  that  automatically 
simulated  or  recreated  a  glitching  method  (that  then  became  something 
close to an ‘effect’). I have started to believe that the popularization 
and cultivation of the avant-garde of mishaps has become predestined and 
unavoidable. 
The  procedural  essence  of  glitch  art  is  opposed  to  conservation;  the 
shocking  experience,  perception and understanding of what  a  glitch  is 
at  one  point  in  time,  cannot  be  preserved  to  a  future  time.  The 
beautiful  creation  of  a  glitch  is  uncanny  and  sublime;  the  artist 
tries to catch something that is the result of an uncertain balance, a 
shifting, un-catchable, unrealized utopia connected to randomness and 
idyllic disintegrations. The essence of  glitch art  is therefore best 
understood as a history of movement and as an attitude of destructive 
generativity; it is the procedural art of non con-formative, ambiguous 
reformations.
 Nevertheless, some artists do not focus on the procedural entity 
of  the  glitch.  They  skip  the  process  of  creation-by-destruction  and 
focus  directly  on  the  creation  of  a  formally  new  design,  either  by 
creating  a  final  product  or  by  developing  a  new  way  to  re-create  or 
simulate the latest glitch-archetype. This can for instance result into 
a plug-in, a filter or a whole new 'glitching software'.
 T h i s   f o r m   o f   ' c o n s e r v a t i v e   g l i t c h   a r t '   o f t e n   f o c u s e s   m o r e   o n   d e s i g n   a n d  
end products then on the procedural breaking of flows and politics. There 
is an obvious critique: to design a glitch means to domesticate it. When 
the  glitch becomes domesticated,  controlled  by  a tool, or technology  (a 
human craft) it has lost its enchantment and has become predictable. It is 
no longer a break from a flow within a technology, or a method to open up 
the political discourse, but instead a cultivation. For many actors it is 
no  longer  a  glitch,  but  a  filter  that  consists  of  a  preset  and/or  a 
default:  what  was  once  understood  as  a  glitch  has  now  become  a  new 
commodity.
 But for some, mostly the audience on the receptive end, these designed 
errors  are  still  experienced  as  the  breaks  of  a  flow  and  can  therefore 
righteously  be  called  glitches.  They  don’t  know  that  these  works  are 
constructed via the use of a filter. Works from the genre ‘glitch art’ thus 
consist as an  assemblage of perceptions  and  the understanding by  multiple 
actors. Therefore, the products of these new filters that come to existence 
after  (or  without)  the  momentum  of  a  glitch  cannot  be  excluded  from  the 
realm of glitch art.
 Even so, the utopian fantasy of 'technological democracy' or 'freedom' 
that  glitch  art  is  often  connected  to,  has  often  little  to  do  with  the 
colonialism of these glitch art designs and glitch filters. If there is such 
a  thing  as  technological  freedom,  this  can  only  be  found  within  the 
procedural  momentum  of glitch art; when  a  glitch  is  just  about  to relay a 
protocol.  Not  when  “one  disruptive  click  is  just  about  to  create  a  new 
design”.
Celebrate 
the  critical  trans-media 
aesthetics of glitch artifacts 
I use glitches to assess the inherent politics  of any kind of medium by 
bringing it into a state of hypertrophy. 
Within software art, the glitch is often used to deconstruct the myth 
of linear progress  and to end  the search for  the holy grail  called 
the perfect technology. In these works, the glitch emphasizes what is 
normally rejected as a flaw and subsequently shows that accidents and 
errors can also be welcomed as new forms of usability. The glitch does 
not  only  invoke  the  death  of  the  author,  but  also  the  death  of  the 
apparatus,  medium  or  tool  (at  least  from  the  perspective  of  the 
technological  determinist  spectator)  and  is  often  used  as  an  anti 
‘software-deterministic’ form.
 This fatal manner of glitch presents a problem for media and art 
historians,  who  try  to  describe  old  and  new  culture  as  a  continuum  of 
different  niches.  To  deal  with  these  breaks,  historians  have  repeatedly 
coined new genres  and new media  forms to  give these splinter  practices a 
place within this continuum. As a result, an abundance of designations like 
databending, datamoshing and  circuitbending  have come to  existence, which 
in fact all refer to similar practices of breaking flows within different 
technologies or platforms. 
 Theorists have also been confronted with this problem. For them, terms 
like  post-digital  or  post-media  aesthetics  frequently  offer  a  solution. 
Unfortunately, these kinds of terms are           misleading because in glitch 
art  ‘post’  actually  often  means  a  reaction  to  a  primer  form.  But  to  act 
against something does not mean to move away from it completely - in fact a 
reaction also prolongs a certain way or mode (at least as a reference). 
     I  think  that  an  answer  to  the  problems  of  both  historians  and 
theoreticians  could  be  found  when  glitch  art  is  described  as  a  procedural 
activity demonstrating against  and within multiple  technologies. Something I 
   describe as 
critical  trans-media  aesthetics
.  The  role  of  glitch 
artifacts  as  critical  trans-media  aesthetics  is  twofold.  On  the  one  hand, 
these aesthetics media          show  a  medium  in  a  critical  state  (a  ruined, 
unwanted, not recognized,  accidental and horrendous  state). These aesthetics 
transform the way the consumer perceives the normal (every accident transforms 
the normal) and describe the passing of a tipping point after which the medium 
(might) become something new. On the other hand, these aesthetics critique the 
medium  (genre,  interface  and  expectations).  They  challenge  its  inherent 
politics  and  the  established  template  of  creative  practice  while 
producing a theory of reflection.
The 
nomad of noise
 travels the acousmatic videoscape
I  am  a  voyager  of  videoscapes:  I  create  conceptually 
synesthetic  artworks,  that  use  both  visual  and  aural  glitch 
(and other noise) artifacts at the same time. These artifacts 
shroud the black box, as a nebula of technology and its inner 
workings. 
What actually happens when a glitch occurs is unknown, I stare at 
the glitch as a void of knowledge; a strange dimension where the 
laws  of  technology  are  suddenly  very  different  from  what  I 
expected  and  know.  Here  is  the purgatory;  an  intermediate  state 
between  the  death  of  the  old  technology  and  a  judgement  for  a 
possible  continuation  into  a  new  form,  a  new  understanding,  a 
landscape, a videoscape..  
 Whenever I use a ‘normal’ transparent technology, I only see one 
aspect  of  the  actual  machine.  I  have  learned  to  ignore  the 
interface and all structural components, to be able to understand a 
message and to use the technology as easy and fast as possible. 
 The glitches I trigger show the technology as the obfuscated box 
that it actually is (and not absent or transparent). They shroud its 
inner workings and the source of the output as a sublime black veil, 
while  they  confront  me  with  a  message  that  I  cannot  understand.  I 
perceive  the  glitches  and  the  machine  without  understanding  where 
they  originate  from.  This  realization  gives  me  the  opportunity  to 
concentrate  better  on  their  formal  qualities  -  to  interpret  their 
structures  and  to  learn  more  from  what  I  can  actually  see.  These 
glitching technologies create an acousmatic videoscape in which I can 
perceive  an  output  outside  of  my  goggles  of  immediacy, transparency 
speed and usability. 
 In the acousmatic videoscape, the critical trans-media aesthetics  
reflect on the perception of technology and its messages; they create 
an  opportunity  for  self  reflexivity,  self  critique  and  self 
expression. 
In the acousmatic videoscape synesthesia exists not just as a metaphor 
for transcoding one medium upon another (with a new algorithm), but as 
a conceptually driven  meeting of the  visual  and the sonic  within the 
newly uncovered quadrants of technology. 
http://videoscapes.blogspot.com
I  curate  a  Vimeo  video  pool  about  conceptual  synesthetic  artifact 
videos:
http://vimeo.com/groups/artifacts


