Glitch Art Constraints and Origins, Part1-Andrew Foresman

                With the transition from the analog to the digital age, glitch art has become a fascination of imperfection.  Glitch art embodies the disruption of the systematic flow of binary data, zeros and ones, and focuses on the indeterminable outcome.  The mesmerizing  imperfections of a once seemly flawless structure reminds the viewer, that even behind our most electronically complex devices, human error still exists.  The key characteristic of glitch art is its indeterminable reaction when exposed to a foreign bug.  How far can the limits be pushed for the result to still be considered glitch art?  Can traditional media or compsited fragments of glitched images be manipulated to fit the specifications?

                There is a degree of control the artist has over the outcome of glitch art.  Some art is purely accidental while other glitch art can be meticulously provoked until a desired outcome is reached.  In each case unflawed data is reappropriated though a glitch to give it new meaning.  Glitch art is a recent development but parallels can still be drawn to 20th century art forms.  " Marcel Duchamp’s ready-mades thematically tie together the reappropriation of an object’s function with the recontexualized bug of a prepared game computer." ¹  Duchamp put it best what he said "...it was always the idea that came first, not the visual example." ¹  In the same way his ready-mades were elevated to the dignity of a work of art, a digital image, by simply rearranging code is technically the same data but repositioned.

                Not unlike cubism, glitch art puts emphasis on fractured objects and the two-dimensionality of the canvas.  But because there is no set rule book for what is considered glitch art and what is not, it is often left up to the artist to define a set of constraints to work under.  A practiced glitch-artist and mathematician, Tony Scott, favors experiments in spontaneity, absolutes, or studies in form, color, or shape.²  He makes an important point when asked about the abstract nature of his art: "I do change the colours of the glitches (to make them fit my warped sense of aesthetic), but I never edit the structure, other than cropping and stretching horizontally or vertically.  Remember, you cannot have half a pixel!" ² 

                A common motif with glitch art is a preliminarily structure which is then modified.  I think it is safe to place a general constraint on the genre that glitch art cannot simply be created from nothing (e.g. drawing or painting), but must modify a preexisting source.   Altering the outcome to the extent Scott described is deemed acceptable because it aesthetically enhances an already glitched image by altering data values, and at the same times retains the corrupted composition of data. 

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1.  Donaldson, Jeff. "Glossing over Thoughts on Glitch. A Poetry of Error." Art Pulse, . http://artpulsemagazine.com/glossing-over-thoughts-on-glitch-a-poetry-of-error (accessed October 7, 2012).

2.  Downey, Jonas. University of Illinois, "Glitch Art." Accessed October 7, 2012. http://jonasdowney.com/workspace/uploads/writing/glitch-art-jonasdowney.pdf.