System//Meltdown: Decoding the Beauty of Glitch Art

Whether it be the the pixelated stuttering of a bad Netflix connection, the jarring white noise of radio interference, or the half-working states of old VHS tapes, the idea of the glitch has permeated American culture. Products often don’t work how they’re supposed to, and what we’re left with is messy, annoying, and corrupted pieces of technology. We are left with technology that malfunctions without cause and operates without input. To many, we are left with something beautiful.

The common notion of the “glitch” dates bate to the 1950’s, and was first used to describe minor faults in spaceship and rocket hardware. These “glitches” were the products of poorly designed circuitry that would cause systems to temporarily break down, disrupt, or misrepresent data. Simply put, they were problems in a system.

In everyday life, glitches occur everywhere. Traffic lights break down constantly, neighborhoods lose power, and computers freeze. We often groan at these instances, but forget them quickly because they are most often self-correcting. A bad streaming connection will often clear up and resume consistent playback. A frozen device will be restarted and work fine. Essentially, we don’t notice the glitch long enough to care about it. But what happens when that isn’t the case? What happens when the broken system becomes our focal point?

The phenomena known as “glitch art” is the practice of purposefully distorting an image, video, or sound at the signal or data level. Techniques of achieving this effect include data bending, data moshing, circuit bending, transcoding, sonification, and forced errors — just to name a few. But why?

The human affinity for glitches is not as simple as it seems. How many of us as children waved our hands in front of our faces as fast as we possibly could, enamored by the illusion of one single hand flying across our field of vision? Why are we so drawn to the pop-and-hums of vinyl, or the optical illusion of “wet pavement” on a hot day?

As humans, we are reliant on patterns and pattern recognition. It is intrinsic to our survival, and the basis of all languages — math, science, music, and communication. This inherent sense for pattern making and discerning is so immersive that we often turn it to auto-pilot. For example, when we step outside our homes, we don’t have to learn how to analyze how hot or cold it is, or how bright it is, or how to focus our eyes to see long distances. Our mind auto-adjusts these things for us, and thus we believe that the world we are currently seeing is exactly how it appears to be.

Glitches disrupt this process. As I look down Farrell St on a hot, humid day, the long and flat stretches of black tar begin to twist and contort. A palpable haze of heat seems to bend the thick yellow lines of the road. Of course, I know that this isn’t really happening. The immersion is broken, and I realize that senses are deceiving me.

This is the feeling that glitch art gives you. It feels foreign. It feels like insider information — like a mistake you were maybe meant to see. It prompts contemplation: What was that? Why is this happening?

All forms of digital glitch art rely on the exploitation of machine code to create transient disturbances in data. Data Bending is the act of opening files — most commonly images — in software meant for other purposes. Try The Wordpad Effect. In this case, the act of translating an image into something else and then back to its original form disrupts the data along the way, and glitch art is manifested.

The sonification technique relies on translating an image or video into a sound file, then back to an image. With this method, you can apply audio effects like reverb and delay to image data and create bizarre, dynamic pieces that seem to skew reality itself.

In all cases of true glitch art, though, you are at the will of the machine. The process of creation involves many hours of trial and error, as a true glitch is always unpredictable. The distortion of data most commonly will just break a file beyond recognition, leaving it unusable in any software platform. This is where the true beauty in glitch art lies: every attempt is inevitably roll of the dice. A truly moving piece must contain the perfect balance of glitch and structure. Stability and fragility. Human and machine.

Glitch art is the human attempt at capturing transience in its most modern form. As Duchamps contemplated motion and perception with his Nude Descending Staircase, we contemplate the relationship between code and reality when we create glitch art. We are forced to look past the manufactured systems we unconsciously subscribe to. We are forced to examine the fact that the relationship between human and machine is a narrative we take part in every day.

That narrative has guided our sense of reality as a culture. We build relationships with screens, speakers, and appliances. We buy objects with sleek cases and rounded edges and never look inside. We plug things in and turn things on, but we’re not quite aware of any of it. We don’t often think about the system behind the object, or how we play a role inside that system.

Glitch art changes that. By observing it, we can further understand what guides modern technology, and how the systems guiding our technology are designed. By creating it, we can further understand our personal roles within the vast and complex systems of data we constantly surround ourselves in, and how we can take control of the systems we participate in to make change.