“A very blunt brush with a mind of its own.” One of the quotes that Daniel Temkin has used in his essay ‘Glitch && Human/Computer Interaction’ speaks to the core of glitch art practice. Glitch art practice’s aesthetic may be rooted to malfunction but it’s not about the actual glitch, but a dialogue between humans and machines. What’s interesting about is unpredictability, “we give up control, not to chance, but to a system with its patterns.” Glitch art practice is a product of collaboration with the machine.
Another quote that spoke to me was from Rosa Menkman’s blog post “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.”
Machines are programmed by the human to perform “the same result” every time it produces it. Something that humans can’t. Human life isn’t predictable in the same way, and that’s what is beauty.
By altering the machine’s code, it leads to the unpredictable result, which in some way reflects human life. Like the Conceptual artists, Sol LeWitt says, “the insanity of the system is a key human condition.”
The concept of glitch art inspired me very much, though I don’t see myself exploring it in near future. And I agree with Daniel Temkin mentions, “perhaps the glitch itself is less important as a visual clue that it builds on this history of experiments in human/machine interaction.” I remain fascinated by its concept.
DR's diary 