[-empyre-] 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100 00101110 00110000

[Rosa Menkman]

Dear Julian, (and everybody else)

You describe glitch art as glitch (when I read your argument you give no room for glitch art cultures besides gl1tch). This implies that there also is a gl0tch - if I understand you correct, you locate these gl0tches as unanticipated ruptures within a logical structure of technological flows (and definitely outside a realm of aesthetic artifacts). This brings, as far as I can see right now, three problems to the table:

First of all, I take issue with dividing any kind of glitch fields or categories into binaries, may it concern technological, semiotical, political, aesthetically or fetishistically defined glitches. Yes, certain forms of glitch within all these fields can or will become stereotypes or even archetypes, but the issue of glitch is way more complex. The creation of a binary opposition within glitch art seems not only too simple, but also in conflict with a genre that so often scrutinizes and aims to violate binary oppositions. The glitch genre is primarily about breaking categories open, uncovering what is in-between and beyond. The ‘glitch’ in ‘glitch art’ does not only depend on technology, but also involves ideologies and visual structures (aesthetics) including the artist’s individual perspective, and the context of viewing. (From The Glitch Moment(um), Rosa Menkman p. 35/36.)


Secondly; I read the "1" in gl1tch as a reference to the impressor(the object)=1 vs. impression (the icon)=0 dichotomy, following the text Curt Cloninger mentioned and that is based on Umberto Ecos writings:

Eco describes a phase of gradual comprehension prior to the point of "naming."  By the time we say, "I saw a dog," we've already gone through several levels of recognition, categorization, and abstraction.  But before any of this naming happens, there is an object that exists which has somehow attracted our attention to the exclusion of all the other existing objects that could have attracted our attention.  Eco describes this object as an impressor, a cast-maker.  We are the "impresee"s, the clay into which the "impressor" object presses.  The impression, the cast or mold that results from this encounter, is the icon.  It is what we consider the object to be.  It is not the object (cf: Magrite's "This is not a pipe" painting).  This icon is an impression of the object, created by the object, and thus defined by the absence of the object.  In binary terms, the object is 1, and the icon is 0.  Presence and absence. (From lurkin' in the murk:, a unified theory of congnisance, Curt Cloninger)

gl0tch would then refer to the a-verbal, non-semiotic, pre-cognisant arena, the glitch existing before recognition, categorization, and abstraction. However, you refer to glitch (as opposition to gl1tch and thus if I understand correctly, a gl0tch?) as an unanticipated rupture within a logical structure; which actually is ad odds with gl0tch which exists before semiotic understanding. 

In any case, there are a couple of variables that need to be considered; the technology and its logics or set of rules, but also the perceiving person, the person that uses his senses and cognition (also led by knowledge) to call it the (gl)0(tch) a gl1tch. So do gl0tches exist? [Do gl1tchers dream of gl0tch art?]
Maybe there is a continuum to be made between gl0tch-glitch-gl1tch and so forth, one that is probably close to a continuum of:

* Before the understanding of glitch (the broken, void of meaning); the gl0tch
* an in-between phase of glitch: the tipping point or procedural moment(um) of when a break can be named a "glitch". 
This concept of moment(um) is twofold: first of all there is the moment, which is experienced as the uncanny, threatening loss of control, throwing the spectator into the void (of meaning). This moment then itself becomes a catalyst, with a certain momentum. Noise turns to glitch when it passes a momentary tipping point, at which it could tip away into a failure (that which we wish to ignore or did not see - here Julians "forrest-through-the-trees" argument applies), or instead force new knowledge about the glitch’s techné, and actual and presumed media flows, onto the viewer.
* The gl1tch: the glitchy-gl0tch is debugged and can also be understood with other terms. This is also where a plug-and-play glitch culture exists, the culture of gl1tch. 

Just to be clear: I believe that there are more layers in-between these three layers, that all feedback and resonate each other.  This is one more reason why I don't prefer to call one a gl1tch and another a gl0tch; its more complex than this!

Now about glitch art: I see glitch art existing in relation to all three (fluid) stasis of this interrelated glitch stratification (here I agree with jonCates who said that earlier). Glitch as form that Cloninger would describe as: a possibility for "lurking in the state of murk"; (murk referencing everything before cognition has mulled it over it and made sense out of it) an opening into the pre-cognisant arena of glitch, that will evaporate the moment you understand it as glitch. 
This is also why I agree with Caleb that glitch here can be used as a medium, but also as a techne (for political me/assage, as an aesthetic, or its semiotics to inject affect). 


Thirdly: I take issue with your connection of glitch art to Baudrillards principle of nullification; or how glitch art always tries to become gl0tch - being void and empty - but will never will reach this state of pre-cognisance and therefor is stuck into a state of aesthetic banality (to be very raw). 
I don't believe that gl1tch is the only form of glitch art. There are (subtle) differences, for instance: glitch art does not need to be void, but instead uses the technique of the void. Following unexpected flows, it confuses the spectator bringing him into a momentary void of meaning, creating a space for the active creation of awareness of expected flows, logics and politics. 
If we subscribe to the gl0tch-glitch-gl1tch paradigm, gl1tch would come most close to a nullification principle, but this seems serendipitously very confusing or paradoxal and I am not sure to love it or to hate it, or both at the same time. 

Warmly,
Rosa


--- 
now, lets watch some 01110000 01110010 01100101 00101101 01100011 00110000 01100111 01101110 00110001 01110011 01100001 01101110 01100011 01100101 art! 

-- .- -.-- / -.. . / -... --- - ... / .-.. --- --- -.- / --- ...- . .-. / ..- ...
ЯOSΛ MEИKMΛN▓██▓▒▒▒▒ ▒▒ ▒▒ ░ ░ ░
http://rosa-menkman.blogspot.com
GLI.TC/H  ▓██▓▒▒▒▒ ▒▒ ▒▒ ░ ░ ░
▐▐▐▐▀▀▀▀▀▀▄▄▀▀▀▀▀▀▌▌▌▌ ▐▐▐▐▐▀▀▀▀▀▄▄▀▀▀▀▀▌▌▌▌▌ ▐▐▐▐▐▐▀▀▀▀▄▄▀▀▀▀▌▌▌▌▌▌ ▐▐▐▐▐▐▐▀▀▀▄▄▀▀▀▌▌▌▌▌▌▌ ▐▐▐▐▐▐▐▐▀▀▄▄▀▀▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌ ▐▐▐▐▐▐▐▐▐▀▄▄▀▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
▐▐▐▐▐▐▐▐▐▄▀▀▄▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌ ▐▐▐▐▐▐▐▐▄▄▀▀▄▄▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌ ▐▐▐▐▐▐▐▄▄▄▀▀▄▄▄▌▌▌▌▌▌▌ ▐▐▐▐▐▐▄▄▄▄▀▀▄▄▄▄▌▌▌▌▌▌ ▐▐▐▐▐▄▄▄▄▄▀▀▄▄▄▄▄▌▌▌▌▌ ▐▐▐▐▄▄▄▄▄▄▀▀▄▄▄▄▄▄▌▌▌▌
▄┘┐█▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄──█─▀─▌█▀┐█┐┐─▄──█─▀─█▄┘─▄┘─█┐█▄┘─▀┐─▄─██▌▌█▀─██▌▌
█▌▌█▌█
█
█
▌
▌
▌
>> 


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au/pipermail/empyre/attachments/20111206/0efdbbb2/attachment.htm>