manon and temkin

natacha/notesOnGlitch_manonTemkin.md

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+# Notes on Glitch
+Hugh S. Manon and Daniel Temkin
+
+## Summary
+
+A series of numbered paragraphs or statements in which Manon and Temkin attempt to theorize and define glitch art and glitch art practice (including databending, datamoshing, and image hacking). In a nutshell:
+
+- Glitch art "disrupts the data behind a digital representation in such a way that its simulation of analog can no longer remain covert."
+- Glitch art is a result of software treating "bad data" the "right way".
+- The basic premise of glitch art is to create drastic effects with little effort or alterations.
+- The glitch is rooted in the accident.
+- Glitch art is process, in that the resulting image (or sound) is the product of a process carried out by the artist.
+- Glitch is pseudo-aleatoric: what seems to be random can, in fact, be reproduced exactly if the image or sound decoder is given the same set of data.
+- Glitching is lottery-like: one cannot know what will be produced before it is produced.
+- Glitch lies at the intersection of analog and digital modes of reproduction. (`Manon and Temkin specifically push back on the idea that a glitch can be anything but technological. For them, a glitch must happen within a technological framework although it is not necessarily a "machinic event".`)
+- Glitch art is "simulated risk"; i.e. copies can be saved, one can undo. It is not catastrophic (`The authors further make the claim that when digital technology fails it fails catastrophically`).
+- "A glitch ruptures [the immersive environment of the computer interface], undercutting the sovereignty of the digital by revealing its pervasiveness."
+
+## Reaction
+I'm not really a fan. Gripes with the text: the narrow definition of "glitch", the fact that the authors seem to purport (generally) that glitches are only possible in technology, and some glaring inconsistencies.
+
+
+Although I can sympathize with the authors adhering to the etymological roots of "glitch", I think its unfortunate that they deny that a glitch can occur beyond the bounds of technology. I think what's important is the essence of the glitch, rather than its medium or material reality. One could easily take the quote above "A glitch ruptures..." and, with slight word changes, make it apply to virtually anything that undercuts the pervasiveness of anything: a mindset, cultural norm, etc. Perhaps one would argue that it isn't the same, that revealing cultural norms does not constitute a glitch as it is not an "error", where a process treats bad data correctly. But isn't that what would be happening in a breach of cultural norms? One gives a cultural process/norm "bad data" (misbehaving) and the culture treats it as it would any other cultural data, potentially exposing things in those cultural norms that are otherwise hidden from view.