Tag: assignment 6

Image from the exhibition: http://gl1tch.us/GlitchArt-wit-jonCates.html

The first impression I had when I first watched Bold3RRR was full of confused as I did not understand the concept that Jon Cates was trying to portray. All I saw in the first 10 minutes of the video was many words overlaying the screen which I assumed was what the artist was doing, switching of screens on the desktop and also broadcasting of Jon Cates face, and different background sounds.

As there were many elements going on at the same time, I felt irritated for not understanding how it works so I decided to rewatch the video in the perspective of Jon Cates who is a glitch/ new media artist. After rewatching, it made me experience a whole new perspective and I found Bold3RRR inspiring and interesting. It opened my mind to how distortion can be a form of art installation and how I would perceive incorporating the different elements to form a live broadcast installation.

Basically, Bold3RRR is about the explorations of fragments, errors, overlaps and recursivities. It is a processed document which was recorded through jonCates’ screen in realtime and the constant change in camera view from desktop to self. Bold3RRR was an exchange of data across 3 different countries where different languages were seen and heard through the broadcast. It was broadcast from Chicago to Taipei to Boulder and back again which was performed via Skype live in Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art.

Bold3RRR Video:

Jon Cates is not only a new media/ glitch artist but also a Chair of Film, Video, New Media and Animation at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He explores most of his work with glitches and d1Ɍ+y̶ ̶N̶3WWW_M3DI∆ which he identifies with and attracts him too.

BOLD3RRR… Realtime: Reflections and Render-times by jonCates (2012)

Personally I feel that Bold3RRR creates an arrangement of multiple computer screens with various background sounds accompanying the artwork which shows Desktop as Mise-en-Scene. It shows a progression of personal screen space evolving to a virtual performance space where people in the museum are able to view Bold3RRR.I think that Jon Cates experiments with glitch effects, realtime audio-video performances, d1Ɍ+y̶ ̶N̶3WWW_M3DI∆ art, video, noise musics and texts on his desktop screens to create an arrangement of ‘performance’ so as to visually create an art stage via his desktop.

Amidst the different distorted sounds and talking, I caught something that Jon Cates has said in the video which I felt that it was so beautifully said.

“…to be lost in proversation and caught amidst in the sense of wonder and surprise, this is glitch unravel in the sense of something wonderful is happening, these are glitch operations, malfunctions and they have gone wrong, so beautifully wrong…”

jonCates’ video Bold3RRR

Many people may feel that glitch is something that went wrong but as for some artists it is something that creates a beautiful artwork or even tells a story about their personal life or personality, making each piece unique.

The reading of Glitch Expectations: A Conversation with jonCates mentioned about the popularity of glitch aesthetics, connected to one another as assemblages and the combination of technology and art creating a performance of our daily lives. Glitches have been mentioned to be imperfect, impure yet exciting which somehow reflects on our own human lives. Personally I feel that there are three different ways of responding to glitch art as a way of storytelling. One is finding it irritating, annoyed and dizzy by different screen movements and background sounds. Second is having no feelings or can’t be bothered by it since it does not affect their lives at all. The last is that they find it so meaningful and attracts them to want to create or incorporate into their art work. No matter how different people respond to this art as a performance, there is no way that I can please everyone through this.

Image from 4RTCR4X0RZ: Hacking Open Together:
New Media Art, Activism and Computer Counter Cultures: http://gl1tch.us/4RTCR4X0RZ.html

Through the reading and video I realised how our desktop screens can be a performance of everyday life which we do all the time. It shows how I can combine human and machine languages with art (desktop/ installation) to create a new type of art performance. Glitch reflects the human nature in the same way where we are imperfect and impure. It does not comprises of just art but also sounds.

I figured that jonCates has a fetish with glitch and it is reflected consistently with all of his artwork and also his life. He focuses on glitch as a way of surprise and managing people’s expectations of it. The quote below shows how he viewed d1Ɍ+y̶ ̶N̶3WWW_M3DI∆ which I really liked. It really shows how he incorporates these in his life and passes down to his unique art pieces.

“d1Ɍ+y̶ ̶N̶3WWW_M3DI∆ as a way of lyfe + as an approach to artmaking is a way of foregrounding these faxxx, these realities, of our lived exxxperiences, + acknowledging how situated we all are w/ all of these systems, + artifacts that we have made, unmade && remade together.”

Glitch Expectations: A conversation with jonCates

Performance art is not just people interacting with each other but also using different mediums to create interaction and Mise-en-Scene. Distortion of sounds, changing in camera view and screens on the desktop through a live broadcast is also a way of performance where there are audiences watching what you are doing all the time. This somehow scares me that I am embedding technology in my life where I treat them like a human and it is being integrated in my life. But also at the same time I am able to integrate fragments, errors, overlaps and recursivities along with art. It is just like chemistry where combinations of the right different elements create a whole new product.