Research Critique 3: Glitch & The Art Of Destruction

This is the end result, listen it at your own risk.

For this Micro Project, my group members Nikki, Joel, Joseph and I created an audio through the act of destruction. We wanted to demonstrate the art of destruction by going against all the rules and norms established in music production and redefine the idea of what is considered music.

We started off by recording an audio of us singing the ‘Happy Birthday’ song. The recording was done at a stairway that produced a lot of echo, in contrast to the ideal studio setting. All of us have our ears covered during the recording, so that we could not hear ourselves. This resulted in a total lack of synchronisation; our pitches were off and all of us started and ended the song at different timings. 

We also recorded other sounds on our way back to the classrooma screeching door, metal cabinets closing, bottle dropping and bottle against railing— to add more textures to the song. We then mashed everything together in Audacity and added random effects to destruct the audio.

This project allowed us to look into destruction as a form of artistic expression and practice it firsthand. We intentionally curated imperfections in our work,  and by doing so, transformed the medium and meaning of the artwork. As mentioned by Menkman in the Glitch Studies Manifesto article, these imperfections shifts an object away from its ordinary form and discourse’It was a liberating experience to embrace inconsistencies in technology and challenge the norms of established systems. Instead of trying to attain perfection, it is a change to surrender to chaos and explore the possibility of randomness.

Menkman also described glitch/destructive art as ‘an always growing language’. The essence of glitch lies in its unpredictability and disfavour. Once people start to understand or embrace a glitch, it is said to have passed its tipping point. When this happens, the essence of glitch art vanishes as the glitch is understood as a new norm and no longer have its element of surprise. Therefore, glitch/destructive art is deemed as a radical and an ever-changing expression because the curators have to constantly explore methods to tilt the equilibrium of normality.

In the recent years, glitch art has been gaining a lot of attention and what was once understood as a glitch has now become a new commodity. According to Jon Cates in an interview with Randall Packer,glitch is already now being compromised or being folded into aesthetics that are also highly popular’. I think that despite this, glitch art can never truly be dead as it is something that will evolve with human’s constant need for advancement.

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