EI – Research Critique 3: Glitch & The Art of Destruction

Group members – Azizah, Fizah, Naomi, Qistina

Idea – We wanted to portray the idea of destruction through the literal abuse of an object and the glitches towards the end of the video to show the damage that has been done.

In this project, we originally planned to simply use a random object and hurl abuse at it verbally. However, after further discussion, we decided to make use of the symbolism of the flower to represent innocence and purity, after which, the abuse was made to be more poetic as well. As our voices are heard reciting the poem, physical abuse can be seen happening to the flower, with the aggravation only increasing both physically and verbally.

“There is an obvious critique: to design a glitch means to domesticate it. When the glitch becomes domesticated, controlled by a tool, or technology (a human craft) it has lost its enchantment and has become predictable.” (Glitch Studies Manifesto, 2009/2010)

The glitch that happens towards the end was an unplanned but pleasant surprise due to an importing mishap, however, we felt that it really helped put emphasis on the damage has been done and how the innocence has in a sense, been corrupted, like the video.

I recently also went to visit the Cinerama exhibition at Singapore Art Museum over the weekend and one mixed media installation by Korakrit Arunanondchai / Alex Gvojic (2016 – 2017) in particular really caught my attention through the artists’ use of glitch.

Visually, we’re looking at something that’s supposed to be a joyous occasion of the artist’s brother on his wedding day, however audio wise, we’re listening to an edited version of Bruno Mar’s Just the Way You Are, of which the way it has been edited has made the whole scene very unsettling as if something terrible is about to happen. Also, the breaks in the linear narrative with cuts jumping to another darker and more ominous location also hint at the possible incoming trouble. This as a result, brings forth an interesting perspective to the artists’ idea of humanity’s future extinction.

“it produces errors, mistakes, breakdowns, glitches, noise, and from a computer science perspective, what you would want to do would be debugging and refining. But from a dirty new media perspective, what you might want to be doing is “rebugging,” and pushing different aspects of the machine worlds to see their thresholds, and experiment, and play.” (Jon Cates, 2014)

I feel that in light of this quote, we should be encouraged to think out of the box and out of our own logic restrictions as ultimately, art doesn’t always have to be practical and have to make sense. Tying it back to the installation I saw at SAM, the breaks in logic instead were able to help the audience feel the sense of dread and unsettlement that the artists’ were trying to portray and that isn’t something that can be achieved when you create using your brain(logic) in a sense.

 

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