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Datamosh: An Artistic Intersection of Glitch and Punk Subculture
Datamosh: An artistic intersection of Glitch and Punk Subculture
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Datamosh: An Artistic Intersection of Glitch and Punk Subculture
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Right: ‘Glitched Amber’ New York, NY, Glitch Safari
Left: ‘Public Transportation Breakdown’ Glitch Safari
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Beauty In The Breakdown: Capturing Moments in the Wild
Datamosh: An artistic intersection of Glitch and Punk Subculture
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Right: Photo By: Edward Colver
Left: Henry Rollings (Black Flag) at Olympic Auditorium, 1981 Photo By: Edward Colver
Beauty In The Breakdown: Capturing Moments in the Wild
Datamosh: An artistic intersection of Glitch and Punk Subculture
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Visiting the Subculture of Glitch Art: The Art of Noise Artifacts
Exploited Artifacts: Subcultures Dedicated to Beautiful Destruction
Datamosh: An artistic intersection of Glitch and Punk Subculture
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Right: ‘Tran Station’, Gltich Safari
Left: ‘Digi Billboard’, Gltich Safari
Previous Page (right): ‘Out of Order’, Glitch Safari
Previous Page (left): Photo By: Edward Colver
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Beauty In The Breakdown: Capturing Moments in the Wild
Datamosh: An artistic intersection of Glitch and Punk Subculture
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Beauty In The Breakdown: Capturing Moments in the Wild
Datamosh: An artistic intersection of Glitch and Punk Subculture
14 Next Page (right): Photo By: Edward Colver
Next Page: (left) Digital Billboard Glitch, Glitch Safari
Right: Photo By: Edward Colver
Left: ‘TV Gltich’, Gltich Safari
Previous Page: Photo By: Edward Colver
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Beauty In The Breakdown: Capturing Moments in the Wild
Datamosh: An artistic intersection of Glitch and Punk Subculture
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Exploited Artifacts: Subcultures Dedicated to Beautiful Destruction
Datamosh: An artistic intersection of Glitch and Punk Subculture
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Artistic Outlets: The “Art” of Glitch and Punk Subculture
Datamosh: An artistic intersection of Glitch and Punk Subculture
Matthieu St Pierre, “Extase sous la Lampe”, 2015
Matthieu St Pierre, “Past-Forward 5”, 2015
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Artistic Outlets: The “Art” of Glitch and Punk Subculture
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Exploited Artifacts: Subcultures Dedicated to Beautiful Destruction
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Artistic Outlets: The “Art” of Glitch and Punk Subculture
Datamosh: An artistic intersection of Glitch and Punk Subculture
Matthieu St Pierre, “Self Portrait”, 2013 Previous Page: Matthieu St Pierre, “Melting Ice Cream 4”, 2013
Matthieu St Pierre, “Wishy-Washy”, 2012
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Artistic Outlets: The “Art” of Glitch and Punk Subculture
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Artistic Outlets: The “Art” of Glitch and Punk Subculture
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30 Right: Alex Wloch / Mixtapes Are Spiritual Things, ”Pigeon “, Glitch Arists Collective
Bottom Left: Alex Wloch / Mixtapes Are Spiritual Things, ”Pigeon “, Glitch Arists Collective
Top Left: Callum Taylor , “A New Career in a New Town”, Glitch Artists Collective
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Collective Contribution: The Artistic Collectives of Glitch & Punk
Datamosh: An artistic intersection of Glitch and Punk Subculture
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Bottom Right: Flea with Fear, Original Photo from: Marla Watson
Top Right: Flea with Fear, Original Photo from: Marla Watson
Bottom Left: Flier By: Unknown
Top Left: Flea with Fear, Original Photo from: Marla Watson
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Collective Contribution: The Artistic Collectives of Glitch & Punk
Datamosh: An artistic intersection of Glitch and Punk Subculture
34 Right: Flier By: Unknown
Center: Flier By: Kim Gordon
Left: Flier By: Thruston Moore
(bottom right - from left to right)
Top Right: Flier By: Randy “Biscuit” Turner
Bottom Left: Tomasz Sulej, “Holly Herndon”, Glitch Artists Collective
Top Left: RoyBot, “Untitled”, Glitch Artists Collective
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Collective Contribution: The Artistic Collectives of Glitch & Punk
Datamosh: An artistic intersection of Glitch and Punk Subculture
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Bottom Right: Mégane Houdas, “Untitled”, Glitch Artists Collective
Top Right: sutureblue X bzzrk, “Untitled”, Glitch Artists Collective
Top Left: Wakelord Photography, “Lark Sleepwalk”, Glitch Artists Collective
Collective Contribution: The Artistic Collectives of Glitch & Punk
Datamosh: An artistic intersection of Glitch and Punk Subculture
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DataMosh: An Artistic Intersection of Glitch and Punk Subculture
An Artistic Intersection of Glitch and Punk Subculture
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Artist Section Pt. 1
Beauty In The Breakdown: Capturing Moments in the Wild
Artistic Outlets: The “Art” of Glitch and Punk Subculture
Collective Contribution: The Artistic Collectives of Glitch & Punk
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Subculture: The Meaning of Style
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Punks Are Not Beasts: A Punk Rock Manifesto
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Mathieu St. Pierre: Glitch Culture & The Glitch Artists Collective
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Exploited Artifacts: Subcultures Dedicated to Beautiful Destruction
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Punks In The Pit: An Interview with Edward Colver
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Glitch Studies & The Glitch Art Manifesto
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Artist Section Pt. 2
Collective Contribution: The Artistic Collectives of Glitch & Punk
Beauty In The Breakdown: Capturing Moments in the Wild
Artistic Outlets: The “Art” of Glitch and Punk Subculture
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List of ‘DataMosh’ Works
129 Bibliography
“The best ideas are dangerous because they generate awareness.�
Subculture: The Meaning of Style Subcultures represent ‘noise’ (as opposed to sound): interference in the orderly sequence which leads from real events and phenomena to their representation in the media. We should therefore not underestimate the signifying power of the spectacular subculture not only as a metaphor for potential anarchy ‘out there’ but as an actual mechanism of semantic disorder: a kind of temporary blockage in the system of representation. Violations of the authorized codes through which the social world is organized and experienced have considerable power to provoke and disturb. Spectacular subcultures express forbidden contents (consciousness of class, consciousness of difference), in forbidden forms (transgressions of sartorial and behavioral codes, law breaking, etc.). They are profane articulations, and they are often and significantly defined as ‘unnatural’. Has not this society, glutted with aestheticism, already integrated former romanticisms, surrealism, existentialism and even Marxism to a point? It has, indeed, through trade, in the form of commodities. That which yesterday was reviled today becomes cultural consumergoods, consumption thus engulfs what was intended to give meaning and direction. (Letebvre 1971)
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Datamosh: An artistic intersection of Glitch and Punk Subculture
The emergence of a spectacular subculture is invariably accompanied by a wave of hysteria in the press. This hysteria is typically ambivalent: it flucÂtuates between dread and fascination, outrage and amusement. Shock and horror headlines dominate the front page while, inside, the editorials positively bristle with ‘serious’ commentary and the centrespreads or supplements contain delirious accounts of the latest fads and rituals. As the subculture begins to strike its own eminently marketable pose, as its vocabulary (both visual and verbal) becomes more and more familiar, so the referential context to which it can be most conveniently assigned is made increasingly apparent. It is through this continual process of recuperation that the fractured order is repaired and the subculture incorporated as a diverting spectacle within the dominant mythology from which it in part emanates.
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Punk is a reflection of what it means to be human. What separates us from other animals? Our ability to recognize ourselves and express our own genetic uniqueness. Ironically, the commonly held view, among the marketeers and publicity engines, stresses the “animalistic”, “primitive” nature of punks and their music. Individuals assume that violence is a key ingredient in punk music, and this assumption is easily perpetuated because it is easy to market violence and news items about violence always get column space. This focus on violence misses a key element of what Punk is all about.
about violence always get column space.”
is easy to market violence and news items
sumption is easily perpetuated because it
key ingredient in punk music, and this as-
“Individuals assume that violence is a
A Punk Rock Manifesto
Punks Are Not Beasts:
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PUNK IS: the personal expression of uniqueness that comes from the experiences of growing up in touch with our human ability to reason and ask questions.
Violence is neither common in, nor unique to punk. When it does manifest itself it is due to things unrelated to the punk ideal. Consider for example the common story of a fight at a high school between a punk and a jock football player. The football player and his cohort do not accept or value the punk as a real person. Rather, they use him as a vitriol receptacle, daily taunting, provoking, and embarrassing him, which of course is no more than a reflection of their own insecurities. One day, the punk has had enough and he clobbers the football captain in the hallway. The teachers of course expell the punk and cite his poor hairstyle and shabby clothing as evidence that he is a violent, uncontrollable nogood. The community newspaper reads “Hallway Beating Re-affirms that Violence is a Way of Life Among Punk Rockers�.
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Spontaneous anger at not being accepted as a real person is not unique to punkers. This reaction is due to being human, and anybody would react in anger regardless of their sub- cultural, or social affiliation if they felt de- valued and useless. Sadly, there are plenty of examples of violence among punks. There are glaring examples of misguided people who call themselves punks too. But anger and violence are not punk traits, in fact, they have no place in the punk ideal. Anger and violence are not the glue that holds the punk community together.
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PUNK IS: a movement that serves to refute social attitudes that have been perpetuated through willful ignorance of human nature.
Because it depends on tolerance and shuns denial, Punk is open to all humans. There is an elegant parallel between Punk’s dependence on unique views and behaviors and our own natural genetic predisposition toward uniqueness. THE BATTLE OF FEAR AND RATIONALITY The compulsion to conform is a powerful side-effect of civilized life. We are all taught to respect the views of our elders, and later when we realize that they are just dogmatic opinions, we are taught not to make a commotion by asking difficult questions. Many just go along with the prevailing notions and never express their own views, which is analogous to a premature death of the individual. Our species is unique in the ability to recognize and express the self, and not exercising this biological function goes against the natural selection gradient that created it in the first place. This complacency combats a fear of failure. It is easy to assume that if everyone else is doing something, then there is no way to fail if you just go along with it. Cattle and flocks of geese can probably recognize this advantage. But the entire human race could fail because of this mentality. Thinking and acting in a direction against the current of popular opinion is critical to
human advancement, and a potent manifestation of Punk. If an issue or phenomenon is found to be true only because other people say it is so, then it is a Punk’s job to look for a better solution, or at least find an independent variable that confirms the held view (sometimes the popular view is just a reflection of human nature, Punks don’t live in denial of this). This ability to go against the grain was a major part of the greatest advances in human thinking throughout history. The entire Enlightenment period was characterized by ideas that shunned the dogma of the time, only to reveal truths in nature and human existence that all people can observe, and that are still with us today. The modern-day Punk thought process, driven by this desire to understand, is a carbon-copy of the Enlightenment tradition. The fact that so many historical examples exist that reveal a will to destroy dogma leads to a powerful tenet: It is a natural trait of civilized humans to be original. The fact that uniqueness is so rare reveals that our nature is stifled by an equally potent opposing force: fear.
PUNK IS: a process of questioning and commitment to understanding that results in self-progress, and by extrapolation, could lead to social progress.
If enough people feel free, and are encouraged to use their skills of observation and reason, grand truths will emerge. These truths are acknowledged and accepted not because they were force-fed by some totalitarian entity, but because everyone has a similar experience when observing them. The fact that Punks can relate to one another on issues of prejudice comes from a shared experience of being treated poorly by people who don’t want them around. Each has his/her own experience of being shunned, and each can relate to another’s story of alienation without some kind of adherence to a code of behavior.
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The truth of prejudice is derived from the experience they all share, not from a written formula or constitution they have to abide by. Punks learn from this experience that prejudice is wrong, it is a principle they live by; they didn’t learn it from a textbook. Without striving to understand, and provoking the held beliefs, the truth remains shrouded behind custom, inactivity, and prescriptive ideology.
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PUNK IS: a belief that this world is what we make of it, truth comes from our understanding of the way things are, not from the blind adherence to prescriptions about the way things should be. Punk’s dependence on objective truth comes from the shared experience of going against the grain. Anyone who has stood out in a crowd feels the truth of the experience. No one had to write a doctrine in order for the outcast to understand what it meant to be different. The truth was plain enough, and that truth could be understood and agreed upon by all those who shared a common experience.
Etiquette and “being nice” are forms of limbic-system repression, necessary at times, but ultimately demeaning of human originality. Lying is the ultimate form of limbic-system repression. It is a denial of the obvious. Truth-tellers, those who are authentic and trustworthy, have learned to master their limbic system. They recognize the desire to lie, but rationalize the futility of advocating something that is not true. Liars, on the other hand, are slaves to their limbic system, out of touch with their most WHAT IS FEAR? basic mental capacities. Their behavior is guarded The fears that drive people to conform have caused and shifty because they let their flawed reasoning, dismal periods in human history. The so-called to cover up the obvious, control their entire makeup. Dark Ages, were tranquil and without upheavThey eventually have to give in to the truth and conal, but also dismally quiet and pestilent, nary a cede defeat, but only after every possible avenue of contrasting view to be found. The pseudo-comfort deception and twisted logic has been advocated in and tranquility that the people of the Dark Ages the interest of hiding their fear. experienced, by conforming to a rigidly enforced bureaucracy enforced by the king and church, was Politicians, Clergymen, Business leaders, and masked entirely by the misery they had to endure Judges are masters of twisted logic and promotion in their day to day life. Life is easy as a peasant, of fear. They make good intellectual targets for no direction, no purpose, just produce more goods Punkers because they don’t respect people who and offspring for the benefit of the king. But using have learned to master their limbic systems. And fear to control peasants (or modern-day blue-colPunkers are not afraid to point out that which is lar workers for that matter) is just a short-term obvious, even if it means their social status might foul exercise, because peasants have the same be jeopardized. mental equipment as the royalty.
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Visiting the Subculture of Glitch Art: The Art of Noise Artifacts
Mathieu is a Canadian experimental visual artist who has been working in video art and photography for over 10 years. After receiving a degree in Fine Arts at Concordia University in Montreal in 2001, a few years later he moved to South Korea where he currently resides. His passion for learning and experimenting with a multitude of video manipulations led him to digital glitches and generative art. He was featured in several publications such as Art Nouveau, Redefine Magazine, and the UK newspaper The Guardian. He also created the leading group for glitch art called Glitch Artists Collective. The Glitch Artists Collective (GAC) is an international repository for all things glitch. While intended mostly for original submissions, its various incarnations, from Tumblr and Facebook to Soundcloud and Bandcamp, are also places where people can share what they’ve found, provided they give full credit to the artist behind the work. “Glitch Artists Collective was created with the intention to connect and promote established and emerging glitch artists from all around the world in addition to becoming a knowledge source for those interested in the art, intrigued by the aesthetic, and especially those who wish to learn how to glitch,” reads the collective’s Facebook page. GAC landed on Konbini’s radar thanks to Logan Owlbeemoth, a glitch artist himself and builder of video synthesizers (Tachyons+), as well as one half of the science fiction electronic duo Os Ovni. With its international contributors, GAC’s flavors of glitch are obviously many. All contributors seem to share a love for the beautiful and sometimes terrifyingly corrupted image. And for those looking to make glitch art, GAC puts at their disposal visual and audio tool kits, which they call Tool Time threads.
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Mathieu St. Pierre: Glitch Culture & The Glitch Artists Collective
Mathieu St. Pierre: Glitch Culture & The Glitch Artists Collective
Datamosh: An artistic intersection of Glitch and Punk Subculture
Hello Mathieu, where are you from and what nspired you to start exploring Glitch art? I’m originally from Montreal, Canada but now I’ve been living in South Korea for nearly 8 years. I’ve always been interested in experimental videos since college. After studying experimental cinema and art at university I wanted to make some films but gave uppretty quickly, that was back in 2003-2004. Around 2010 I came across Takeshi Murata’s “Pink Dot” which blew my mind! From then I started experimenting with glitches and looked on the internet for other artists with the same passion. At the time, there were a few very interesting Flickr groups where I started posting. What can an audience learn from watching glitches, video compression and other forms of digital noise? Glitch art somehow already caught the mainstream’s appeal that’s for sure, how many times have I seen “cool” glitch effects in movies, music videos and even video games? With those mediums it’s usually associated with speed and coolness. However, as a form of art the audiencecan question the technology itself and the wired world we live in. With popular online medias such as Youtube or Facebook, the more we are exposed to technology, the more we are likely to encounter glitches. From an artistic point of view, glitches can also be simply beautiful and colorful! Your series ‘Melting Ice Cream’ is visually hypnotic! Can you talk us through its concept? I was experimenting with various layers in Sony Vegas. I superimposed HD videos of my wife that I previously glitched with another program, after messing around with some parameters I was able to come up with those rich colors and very unique waving pattern. It was interesting to go from a very high definition image to something completely abstract and colorful. 56
Datamosh: An artistic intersection of Glitch and Punk Subculture
Do you find the glitching process therapeutic psychologically in any way? I love glitching and creating images. I think that it also involves a lot of hazard (the magic of glitch art) especially if you work from video files. What I usually do (my therapy) is I make a very strong cup of black coffee and crank up the music, that helps me create for hours! For artists who want to begin experimenting with Glitch art, what software can you recommend? It depends if you are on Mac or PC I guess, but overall I would definitely recommend people to check for tutorials on Youtube or visit some Facebook pages dedicated to glitch art, like “Glitch Artists Collective” which I’ve started about a year ago. Finally, can you recommend our readers a really good song that equally explores audio-glitch? I’m not too familiar with audio-glitch but I will drop a previous collaborator’s name; Benjamin Schlegel who helped me in the past with one of my videos that needed a soundtrack. There’s also very interesting and atmospheric stuff on Soundcloud such as Chrissy Core’s Cc2
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58 Matthieu St Pierre, “African Lion”, 2015
or redefining quality.”
positive, generative
they also have a
negatively defined,
while they are often
as a paradox;
artifacts thus exist
“Digital noise
Exploited Artifacts: Subcultures Dedicated to Beautiful Destruction
Visiting the Subculture of Glitch Art: The Art of Noise Artifacts
Datamosh: An artistic intersection of Glitch and Punk Subculture
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In information theory, noise possesses a very specific set of connotations, or even rules. In this theory, noise has been isolated to the different occasions in which the static, linear notion of transmitting information is interrupted. 1 In the digital, these interruptions can be subdivided into glitch, encoding / decoding (of which in digital compression is the most ordinary form) and feedback artifacts. Artists exploit these artifacts to make (reflexive) media specific. The meaning of noise is more complex than can be explained by information theory; the ‘meaning’ of noise differs according to perspective. Etymologically, the term noise refers to states of aggression, alarm and powerful sound phenomena in nature (‘rauschen’), such as storm, thunder and the roaring sea. Moreover, when noise is explored within a social context or in art, the term is often used as a figure of speech, and possesses many more meanings. Sometimes, noise stands for unaccepted sounds; for that which is not music, not valid information, or is not a message. Noise can also stand for an (often undesirable, unwanted, other and unordered) disturbance, or a break or addition within the linear transmission of useful data. However noise is defined, its negative definition also has a positive consequence: it helps to (re) define its opposite, which is the world of meaning, the norm, regulation, goodness, beauty and so on. Some artists within the Glitch Art community intentionally elucidate and deconstruct the hierarchies of digital technologies. They do not work in opposition to what is inside the flows but practice on the border of these flows. Sometimes, artists use the computers’ inherent maxims as a façade, to trick the audience into a flow of certain expectation that the artwork subsequently rapidly breaks out of. As a result, the spectator is forced to acknowledge that the computer is a closed assemblage based on 1. Claude E. Shannon and W. Weaver, The Mathematical Theory of Communication, Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1949. I realize that Shannon’s and Weaver’s model is not a correct blueprint for communication. But because it is basic and doesn’t focus on the transmission of meaning, the model makes it possible to leave semiotics or textual analysis out of the picture, at least for now. In this way the model can be used to research communication strictly from a formalistic point of view, which is in my opinion one part (the ‘beginning’) of the many different stratifications of glitch art
Exploited Artifacts: Subcultures Dedicated to Beautiful Destruction
Visiting the Subculture of Glitch Art: The Art of Noise Artifacts
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the norms of society.�
lifestyle divergent from
seek an alternative
as punks generally
rebellion and fashion
goes much further than
“Punk as a subculture
The Punk Movement: A Subculture of Destruction and Violent Expression
Series of Photos By: Edward Colver
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Datamosh: An artistic intersection of Glitch and Punk Subculture
On another spectrum, we can take a look at the essence of the punk movement, which is often viewed as a youth culture based on teen adoa genealogy of conventions, while at the same lescence angst. However, punk as a subculture goes time the computer is actually a machine that much further than rebellion and fashion as punks can be bent or used in many different ways. generally seek an alternative lifestyle divergent Digital noise artifacts thus exist as a paradox; from the norms of society. There was no local punk while they are often negatively defined, they scene in the Los Angeles area prior to the events of also have a positive, generative or redefining 1977, but thousands of young malcontents in the quality. The break of a flow within technology region were certainly prepared to embrace the new (the noise artifact) generates a void which is sound and style once it came to town. In proper LA not only a lack of meaning. It also forces the fashion, a couple of fans started a fanzine called audience to move away from the traditional Slash before there was anything to really write discourse around a particular technology and about (“We were pretending there was an LA scene to ask questions about its meaning. Through when there was no scene whatsoever”), and then this void, artists can critique digital media reality eventually caught up with the media (“Within and spectators can be forced to recognize the a few months there was a snowball effect: suddenly inherent politics behind the codes of digital there were more bands than we knew what to do media. So, while most people experience with”). 2 The local punk scene was initially centered noise artifacts as something negative (or as in Hollywood, with bands like X, the Weirdos, the an accident. It can be viewed that the positive Screamers, and the Germs. A number of Chicano consequences of these imperfections and the punk bands formed across Southern California, new opportunities they facilitate should be including the Zeros (one of whom later assumed the emphasized. Noise artifacts can be a source identity of El Vez, the self-proclaimed “Mexican Elfor new patterns, anti-patterns and new vis”), the Plugz, and Los Illegals, the latter of whom possibilities that often exist on a border or once described themselves as “Tito Puente takes membrane (of, for instance, language). With LSD and hangs out with The Clash, or hangs out with the creation of breaks with the political, social, existential Marxist theorists.” and economic conventions of the technological machine, the audience may become aware In London, punks had witnessed the breakdown of its inherent preprogrammed patterns. Then, a of the liberal consensus and mocked its passage distributed awareness of a new interaction gestalt down the River Thames, costuming themselves as can take form. the empire’s degenerate offspring. In the suburbs of Los Angeles, where a similar groundswell of anxious conservatism and greed had opened the doors of the White House to a former Hollywood actor, who then cleared the way for a glossier but even more merciless form of capitalism, the symptom and the response was hardcore. Hardcore is a variation of punk music and subculture which grew out of the suburban garages of California in the early 1980s, and it embodied a different, and in some ways 2. Savage, J. (1992). pg. 447. England’s dreaming: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, punk rock, and beyond. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Exploited Artifacts: Subcultures Dedicated to Beautiful Destruction
Punk: A Subculture of Deconstruction and Violent Expression
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repetition and boredom. “
periods of senseless
enclosed within long
succession of moments
everyday life into a
amusements dissect
games, and commercial
programming, video
modic flows of television
disrupted as the spas-
have been similarly
“Time and memory
The Punk Movement: A Subculture of Destruction and Violent Expression
Photo By: Edward Colver, “Jello Biafra (Dead Kennedy’s), circa 1982
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Black Flag, a band started in 1978 by surfers and skaters from Hermosa Beach, was among the first of its genre and quickly became one of the most popular groups which defined the nihilist sensibilities of Southern California hardcore. In songs like “Nervous Breakdown,” “Wasted,” “No Values,” and their football chorus tribute to beer, “Six Pack,” Black Flag spoke for young white suburbanites lacking morals or a sense of purpose to the point of self-parody, or more specifically to the point where it was impossible to tell whether they were a parody, the real thing, or somehow both.
larger, spectrum of contradictions and possibilities. Indeed, Southern California hardcore was generally more nihilistic than British punk, its shows were plagued by violence and machismo, its sentiments were sometimes shamelessly racist, misogynist, and homophobic, and its rebellion was routinely defused by apathetic resignation and cynical fatalism. These tendencies dramatized, exaggerated, and in some cases parodied the condition of young suburbanites who are raised as spectators to an endless parade of meaningless images and taught to unleash their frustrations upon the powerless. But other strains embedded within the same hardcore subcultures personified more socially engaged and constructive possibilities, delivering some of the most piercing criticism of the political and economic order of the 1980s while creating an even more extensive network of do-it-yourself practices and institutions. This critique also formed in oppositional relation to commercial media and consumer culture, and its internal contradictions typically germinated from an all-encompassing insistence on purity and authenticity. In other words, Los Angeles, which had arguably emerged as the capital city of the condition of postmodernity, hosted even more extreme forms of both the culture of deconstruction and the culture of authenticity as they had been developing within punk music and style.
The regression to sophomoric idiocy is a rebellion against authority, or at the very least an attempt to evade responsibility by playing dumb, but it is a rebellion which can also support reactionary and authoritarian ends. It flees not only from the demands of work, the law, family, and etiquette, but also from all accountability to anyone but oneself and one’s immediate wants. All social forces larger than the self are indiscriminately reviled as intrusions and constraints. Thus, punk’s capacity for parody and semiotic attack could be put in the service of misogyny, racism, and homophobia. As Greil Marcus has written of the Adolescents’ music: “Attacked, one may side with one’s attacker, and accept the terms of the attack . . . Contempt for and a wish to exterminate the other is presented here as a rebellion against the smooth surface of everyday life, but it may be more truly a violent, spectacular accommodation to America’s worst instincts.” In this sense, the temper tantrums of brat-core punk served as a fitting soundtrack to Proposition 13 and the tax “revolts” of 1978, when homeowners in the valley and Orange County organized to rid themselves of responsibility for other people’s education and other people’s children. The regressive persona of suburbia forms as a convergence of liberal individualism and pre-Oedipal narcissism, both of which have a long history in social life but which are further intensified by post-Fordist methods of production and consumption. Those employed in the retail and service sectors have few opportunities for vertical mobility or career advancement, are entrusted with only minimal responsibilities, and rarely establish a lasting rapport with co-workers or the customers
Exploited Artifacts: Subcultures Dedicated to Beautiful Destruction
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The D.I.Y. of Glitch Culture
Matt Trost, “Rascal Visual.” Glitch Artists Collective.
technological system. “
(of expectations) within a
(one of) the many flows
operandi, a break from
abnormal modus
as an unexpected and
time; it is often perceived
form or state through
“The glitch has no solid
they serve. The type of work performed is not likely to inspire feelings of achievement or satisfaction, and the worker often drifts from job to job without a sense of direction or purpose. Meanwhile, advertising encourages its viewers to think of consumptive desires as primordial instincts, to sublimate existential dissatisfaction with purchasing power, and shrug off those who stand in the way of a good time. Time and memory have been similarly disrupted as the spasmodic flows of television programming, video games, and commercial amusements dissect everyday life into a succession of moments enclosed within long periods of senseless repetition and boredom. The do-it-yourself, or D.I.Y. aspect of punk is one of the most important factors fueling the subculture. Independent record labels, the D.I.Y. press, and the D.I.Y. venues are what have kept the punk subculture alive since the late 1970s. The creation of the punk subculture has allowed individuals who seek an alternative lifestyle to thrive. The D.I.Y. record labels and independent pressing system creates a social network that allows for punk music and ideologies to be distributed. This social networking allows punk bands to travel from city to city playing at D.I.Y. venues and fueling the overall subculture.
The D.I.Y. of Glitch Culture
Glitch art is thus not always an art of the momentum; many works have already passed their tipping point, or never pass one at all. Glitch art exists within different systems; for instance the system of production and the system of reception. It is not only the artist who creates the work of glitch art who is responsible for the glitch. The ‘foreign’ input (wrongly encoded syntaxes that lead to forbidden leakages and data promiscuity), the hardware and the software (the ‘channel’ that shows functional collisions), and the audience (who are in charge of the reception, the decoding) can also be responsible. All these actors and their perspectives are positioned within different but sometimes overlapping flows in which the final product can be described or recognized as glitch art. This is why an intended error can still rightfully be called glitch art from another perspective, and why glitch art is
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not always just a personal experience of shock, but also, as a genre, a metaphorical way of expression, that depends on multiple actors. Works from the genre ‘glitch art’ thus consist as an assemblage of perceptions and the understanding of multiple actors. Therefore, the products of these new filters that come to existence after or indeed without the momentum of a glitch cannot be excluded from the realm of glitch art. The popularization and cultivation of an avant-garde of mishaps has become predestined and unavoidable. Even so, the utopian fantasy of ‘technological democracy’ or ‘freedom’, which glitch art is often connected to, has little to do with the ‘colonialism’ of these hot glitch art designs and glitch filters. If there is such a thing as technological freedom, it can only be found within the procedural momentum of cool glitch art – when a glitch is just about to relay a protocol.
Glitches vs. Glitch Art A negative feeling makes place for an intimate, personal experience of a machine (or program), a system exhibiting its formations, inner workings and flaws. As a holistic celebration rather than a particular perfection these ruins reveal a new opportunity to me, a spark of creative energy that indicates that something new is about to be created. Questions emerge: What is this utterance, and how was it created? Is it perhaps...a glitch? But once the glitch is named, the momentum – the glitch – is gone...and in front of my eyes suddenly a new form has emerged. The glitch has no solid form or state through time; it is often perceived as an unexpected and abnormal modus operandi, a break from (one of) the many flows (of expectations) within a technological system. But as the understanding of a glitch changes when it is being named, so does the equilibrium of the (former) glitch itself: the original experience of a rupture moved beyond its momentum and vanished into a realm of new conditions. The glitch has become a new mode, and its previous encounter has become an ephemeral, personal experience. Just as with noise, the word glitch in glitch art is
Exploited Artifacts: Subcultures Dedicated to Beautiful Destruction
Datamosh: An artistic intersection of Glitch and Punk Subculture
Burak Bakal, “Untitled,” Glitch Artists Collective.
Glitches Vs. Glitch Art // Hot & Cool Glitches: Accidents Vs. Purposeful Destruction
used metaphorically and thus slightly different than the stand-alone technical term ‘glitch’. The genre of glitch art moves like the weather: sometimes it evolves very slowly, while at other times it can strike like lightning. The art works within this realm can be disturbing, provoking and horrifying. Beautifully dangerous, they can at once take all the tensions of other possible compositions away. These works stretch boundaries and generate novel modes; they break open previously sealed politics and force a catharsis of conventions, norms and beliefs.
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canny and sublime; as an artist I try to catch something that is the result of an uncertain balance, a shifting, ungraspable, unrealized utopia connected to randomness and idyllic disintegrations. The essence of glitch art is therefore best understood as a history of movement and as an attitude of destructive generativity; it is the procedural art of non con-formative, ambiguous reformations.
However, I have also noticed that over time some of my own glitches have developed into personal archetypes; I feel that they have become ideal examples or models of my work. Moreover, I see that some artists do not focus on the procedural entity of the glitch at all. They skip the process of creation-by-destruction and focus directly on the creation of a new formal design, either by creating a final product or by developing a new way to recreate Glitch art is often about relaying the membrane of the latest glitch archetype. This can result in a plugthe normal, to create a new protocol after shatterin, a filter or a whole new ‘glitching software’ that ing an earlier one. The perfect glitch shows how de- automatically simulates or recreates a particular struction can change into the creation of something glitching method, which then becomes something original. Once the glitch is understood as an alterclose to an ‘effect’. Some forms of glitch art can native mode of representation or a new language, thus become ideal examples or models that have its tipping point has passed and the essence of its gained a particular meaning and follow a certain glitch being is vanished. The glitch is no longer an discourse. art of rejection, but a shape or appearance that is recognized as a novel form (of art). Artists that work This ‘new’ form of ‘conservative glitch art’ or ‘hot with glitch processes are therefore often hunting glitch art’ focuses more on design and end products for a fragile equilibrium; they search for the point than on the procedural and political breaking of when a new form is born from the blazed ashes of flows. There is an obvious critique: to design a glitch its precursor. 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 Hot and Cool Glitches: become predictable. It is no longer a break from a flow within a technology, or a method to open up the Accidents Vs. Purposeful political discourse, but instead a form of cultivation. Destruction For many actors it is no longer a glitch, but a filter that consists of a preset and/or a default: what The procedural essence of glitch art is was once understood as a glitch has become a new opposed to conservation; the shocking experience, commodity. perception and understanding of what a glitch is at one point in time cannot be preserved for a future time. The beautiful creation of a ‘cool’ glitch is un-
Exploited Artifacts: Subcultures Dedicated to Beautiful Destruction
has become predictable.”
its enchantment and
(a human craft), it has lost
by a tool, or technology
domesticated, controlled
“When the glitch becomes
Datamosh: An artistic intersection of Glitch and Punk Subculture
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Exploited Artifacts: Subcultures Dedicated to Beautiful Destruction
Datamosh: An artistic intersection of Glitch and Punk Subculture
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by fans, for the fans.”
fundamentally made
as something that is
can be summarized
of D.I.Y. punk culture
“The ethical domain
The most prevalent core value in the punk subculture mentioned by all the participants of this study was Do-It-Yourself, or D.I.Y. Chris summarized most participants’ responses by stating, “The ethical domain of D.I.Y. punk culture can be summarized as something that is fundamentally made by fans, for the fans.” He explained how with the outgrowth of hardcore punk in the 1980s would not have been possible without D.I.Y. Because no major labels showed interest in punk, punks were forced into creating almost every aspect of the subculture. Chris believes the D.I.Y. ethic spawned from kids in the late 1970s “giving their middle finger to the major rock groups of the time.” Chris mentions the importance of how the D.I.Y. ethic is extremely close to the political output of many individuals within the subculture by saying:
Punk’s D.I.Y. Culture: Purposeful Creation by Destruction
Many initial publications (fanzines) that covered new groups were fan created and were analogous to the political pamphlets that were circulated during the centuries of yore. Moreover, what’s more political than refusing a conglomeration of dominant media outlets and releasing your own art? D.I.Y. was not only the forefront for just strictly music, but made it possible for individuals to book their own tours, release their own records, and distribute their own ideas and materials through fanzines. By the late 1970s, underground labels started to emerge from all over the United States. Labels such as SST, TwinTone, Epitaph, BYO, and ROIR were releasing records by many local punk acts. Bands including Black Flag, Youth Brigade, Minor Threat, and the Dead Kennedys were now releasing records and booking their own tours. Although bands have recorded their own music in the past; punk helped
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Flipper, 1982, Photo By: Edward Colver
Punk’s D.I.Y. Culture: Purposeful Creation by Deconstruction
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Exploited Artifacts: Subcultures Dedicated to Beautiful Destruction
Datamosh: An artistic intersection of Glitch and Punk Subculture
order to support the bands of the subculture. D.I.Y. in the punk subculture is often not a choice because of the low economic income of individuals in the subculture. Ryan and Matt both discussed how there is absolutely no money in the punk subculture. Ryan runs a recording studio; screen prints unauthorized t-shirts, books shows, and plays in multiple bands. He questioned whether or not punk has ever had any actual core values. There are virtually no politics in uniform except for doing it yourself. Ryan gave the example of Screwdriver, a white supremacist band, and Crass, an anarchist punk band, as both being classified as “punk” bands despite their lack of shared values. Being a participant in the punk subculture suggests that one must be active in the creation and support of
Photo By: Edward Colver
pave the way for people in bands to create their own music, release a record, and tour with a minimum of outside assistance. Because Jim was around for the birth of the punk movement, he explained how after it was proven that individuals could create music and go on tour without being a rock star, the ideal became that “it is better to do it yourself.” Rob viewed the D.I.Y. ethic as an untaught requirement because of the underground nature of the punk subculture, stating that “Kids began making homemade shirts in support of their favorite bands, or even for their own bands. So even if a company would do business with them for merchandise or what not, they didn’t have the money anyway.” He explained how bars were the only venues who welcomed punk bands to perform. The average age of participants in the punk subculture range from age eleven to eighteen, excluding the majority of fans from the shows, and punks do not rely on anyone but themselves to create the subculture. Because the subculture consists mostly of adolescents, D.I.Y. also meant creating your own clothes on a limited budget in
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Punk’s D.I.Y. Culture: Purposeful Creation by Destruction
Black Flag’s first club show flier, 1979
of the subculture.”
ating almost every aspect
punks were forced into cre-
showed interest in punk,
“Because no major labels
After shows that he books, Rob often offers shelter and hospitality to the touring bands. Trust is a universal aspect of the punk community because there are constantly people passing through a city for one night to play a show. Rob explained this concept by telling a story of an unnamed band that broke this common bond. Rob had arranged for a touring “If people play music for any other reason band to stay at a friend’s house after a show that he besides their own desire, it falls flat and booked. After the band had left for their next destiuseless to me. I have no time for other peonation, Rob was informed by his friend that a guitar ple’s failure. In this case, the watered down amp and part of a drum set were missing from his punk band who emerged from the mall still apartment. After phone calls to the band on the can have access to an extremely sacred D.I.Y. road went unanswered, Rob was able to contact the recording space. “ promoter of the band’s next show via the internet in order to resolve the problem. The promoter of the Being an outsider and staying an outsider are key show contacted the band and explained how their points that Brandon mentioned. The feeling of alien- show would be cancelled unless the equipment was ation is a common bond that punks seem to have returned to Rob’s friend in St. Louis. After telling this in common across the world. Brandon feels that by story, Rob explained that although there is a combeing an outsider at school, he found a common mon trust between people in the punk movement, ground with other alienated punks. The definition there are always people who do not adhere by the of how one may be an outsider can place them in a rules. This story illustrates how tightly knit the punk certain niche within D.I.Y. punk, and classification of community is, and how with the internet virtually different subdivisions of the punk subculture varies any person involved in punk can be contacted. by the individual’s view on the meaning of punk. The agreement that modern technology has done The foundation of networking system used by punks more good than bad in the networking aspect of today was created by hardcore punk bands such as the D.I.Y. punk subculture is present throughout all Black Flag during the early 1980s. In order to partic- the participants’ views. Ryan stated that there can ipate in the D.I.Y. principles, it is necessary to make be five different D.I.Y. punk shows in Boston on a contacts with others in order to accomplish tasks. given night. The internet has also created divisions Networking within the punk subculture has changed between scenes of punk. Prior to the internet, drastically after the advent of electronic commupunk bands of all styles would often play together; nication. Online fanzines, music sharing sites, and whereas now there are strictly hardcore shows, email enable virtually any punk to connect with oth- crust shows, or pop-punk shows. Electronic comer punks and bands within the subculture. All of the munication has changed the D.I.Y. punk subculture participants in this study believed that the internet in a positive manner by increasing the connections has strengthened the D.I.Y. networking system by between people, but at the same time has created allowing access to scenes around the world. Rob divisions between punk genres. described the punk network as very tightly knit group of punks based on trust.
Flier By: Gira/Jarboe
other members of the movement. Although all of the participants stated that the D.I.Y. ethic is the core value of the punk subculture, Ryan mentioned that he believes punk would exist without D.I.Y. Although the music and image play a definite role in the subculture, he said:
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Exploited Artifacts: Subcultures Dedicated to Beautiful Destruction
Datamosh: An artistic intersection of Glitch and Punk Subculture
The Social Aspects of D.I.Y. in Punk Subculture The attraction of individuals to the social aspect of the punk subculture was not a surprise. Punk music is very important for individuals that are part of the movement to release emotion, but the core of the movement is based on socialization. The extreme hands-on nature of D.I.Y. ethics gives a person a feeling of establishment, and producing a sacred product such as a record can give a person a sense of accomplishment.
Being able to produce and distribute ideas and art without the interference of major corporations seems to be the main idea within the punk subculture. The ability to create your own identity and be in a network of like-minded individuals can create a sense of satisfaction for those involved in the punk movement. Because of the young nature of the participants in the punk subculture, little currency involved in its transactions, and as previously mentioned, the D.I.Y. ethic originates from necessity as well as the lack of monetary funds.
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the punk community. “
and take on specific roles within
viduals to actively participate
survive it is necessary for indi-
order for the punk movement
extremely important but in
Freedom of expression is
movement means being active.
Being involved in the punk
core of the punk subculture.
resources that support the
as well as a mobilization of
“D.I.Y. is a social movement
The Social Aspects of D.I.Y. In Punk Subculture
D.I.Y. is a social movement as well as a mobilization of resources that support the core of the punk A majority of the individuals who get involved with subculture. Being involved in the punk movement the punk subculture have been active members means being active. Freedom of expression is since a very young age. The sense of belonging to extremely important but in order for the punk an alternative scene is one of the main attractions movement survive it is necessary for individuals to to the punk subculture, as the participants of this actively participate and take on specific roles within study all mentioned feelings of being an outsider. the punk community. The distribution of fanzines is The typical punk show can be viewed as a playan expression of self-philosophy, whereas records ground, as watching bands perform as loud and fast are a creative outlet. Punk music is created for indias possible with high energy can enable the partic- viduals within the movement to share the common ipants to play without rules. Punk shows can also bond of self-expressionism. Creating fanzines, be seen as a common meeting ground. Punks share printing shirts for bands, and playing in bands are information about new bands, upcoming events, just small parts of roles that individuals play in the and other important knowledge of the subculture movement. during shows, as a show represents an opportunity for socialization as well as viewing live music.
Exploited Artifacts: Subcultures Dedicated to Beautiful Destruction
Datamosh: An artistic intersection of Glitch and Punk Subculture
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Glitch Perception: Human Involvement
generate awareness.”
dangerous because they
oblivion. The best ideas are
its own choice of and for
that destroys itself by
placed truth; it is a vision
“Glitch studies is a mis-
Mike Mike, “Untitled,” Glitch Artists Collective.
Glitch studies attempts to balance nonsense and knowledge. It can be pursued through Glitchspeak, a vocabulary of new expressions, and an always growing language of digital culture. These expres Some people see glitches as technosions teach the speaker something about the logical, while others perceive them as a social inherent norms, presumptions and expectations of construction. It is useless to place one perspective a language: what is not being said, what is left out. above the other. Glitch studies needs to take place Glitch studies searches for the unfamiliar while at in-between, both, neither and beyond. Glitches do the same time it tries to de-familiarize the familiar. not exist outside of human perception. What was a This study can show what is acceptable behavior glitch 10 years ago is, most often, not a glitch anyand what is unacceptable, or outside the norm. more - it might however have become a fetishized To capture and explain a glitch is a necessary evil, retro-commodity. This ambiguous contingency of which enables the generation of new modes of the glitch depends on its constantly mutating mate- thought and action. When these modes become riality. The glitch exists as an unstable assemblage normalized, glitch studies shifts its focus or topic in which materiality is influenced by the medium’s of study to find the current outsider in relation to construction, operation and content of the appara- a new technology or discourse. Glitch studies is a tus on the one hand; and the work, the writer, and misplaced truth; it is a vision that destroys itself by the interpretation by the reader and/or user – the its own choice of and for oblivion. The best ideas are meaning – on the other. Thus, the materiality of dangerous because they generate awareness. Glitch glitch art is not (just) the machine on which the studies is what you can just get away with. work appears, but a constantly changing construct that depends on the interactions between the text and its social, aesthetic and economic dynamics – and, of course, the point of view from which different actors are able to make meaning.
Exploited Artifacts: Subcultures Dedicated to Beautiful Destruction
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Datamosh: An artistic intersection of Glitch and Punk Subculture
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Visiting the Subculture of Glitch Art: The Art of Noise Artifacts
Born June 17, 1949, in Pomona CA., Edward Curtiss Colver (a third-generation Southern Californian) was named after his 12-times removed great-grandfather, who arrived in the U.S. from Cornwall England in 1635. Edward’s father, Charles, was a forest ranger for 43 years in charge of a 17,000 acre experimental forest. Upon his retirement, Charles was presented with the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Award by President George H. W. Bush at the White House. The tallest peak southwest of Mount San Antonio aka Mount Baldy, was named after Charles (Colver Peak) . Edward is essentially a self taught photographer; his brief formal training occurred during night classes at UCLA, where he studied beginning photography with Eileen Cowin. Largely influenced by Dada and Surrealism, Edward was most impressed in his early years by the art of Southern Californian native Edward Kienholz. In the late 1960′s, Edward’s perspective on life and art was changed by his exposure to composers such as Edgar Varese, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Krzysztof Penderecki, and John Cage. Three months after he began taking photographs, Edward had his first photo published: an image of performance artist Johanna Went, featured in Bam magazine. Since then he has shot photos for dozens of record labels including EMI, Capitol, and Geffen. His punk pictures have been featured on more than 250 album covers and include some of the most recognizable and iconic covers of the late 20th century. Edward has been doing photography for 33 years, has never advertised, he does not solicit work and his phone number has always been unpublished. Colver has not watched TV since 1979. He lives with his wife Karin Swinney in a 1911 Craftsman House in Los Angeles.
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Punks In The Pit: An Interview with Edward Colver
Punks In The Pit: An Interview with Edward Colver
Datamosh: An artistic intersection of Glitch and Punk Subculture
How did you get into photography? I was 29 when I started shooting pictures in the LA punk scene. I had studied art all through school and junior college, including printing, graphic design, sculpture, wood art, painting and ceramics, then one day I got hold of a cheap camera. My friend said that the camera I was using was only worth 35 bucks and although I had never used a 35mm before, I started taking it to punk shows in late 1978. I think my first gig might’ve been FEAR. I’m not entirely sure. My first photograph was published three months after I started shooting. It was a total fluke that it happened: I collect American ‘arts and crafts’ art and furniture starting in the late ’60s. Fellow collector friends of mine invited me to dinner. They had heard that I was shooting photographs and asked to see some. Their other dinner guests were editors at Bam magazine. They saw one of my photographs of the performance artist Johanna Went and asked me if they could use some of them for a story on her, then one thing led to another… What part did music play in your photography? I was a huge music fan all starting in my teenage years in the mid-60s. For example, I really loved underground hard psychedelic music from the mid-60s. I was rather involved in the early hippy movement and then in the early ’70s I was like, ‘I’ve had it with this crap’. Years later I ended up getting involved with the punk scene. That was unusual, most people never even thought of making that transition. I think being such a big music fan, plus my school background in art and my interest in collecting art probably helped my photography, and in parallel to that I have a long-standing fascination with underground art movements, so it all tied in.
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Datamosh: An artistic intersection of Glitch and Punk Subculture
How did you get involved in the punk and hardcore scene? I didn’t work my way into the hardcore scene; I was there from its inception. I would go to at least five gigs every week and people knew me because I was always there. Punks didn’t look in the phone book for a photographer’s number. Everyone seemed to like my stuff and it just went from there. To this day – and I have been shooting for over 35 years – I have never advertised, I don’t solicit work, my phone number is unpublished and I use funeral sympathy cards with my information stamped on them for ‘business cards’. Most of the album covers I shot were for the bands first LP’s stating with The Circle Jerk’s Group Sex, Black Flag’s Damaged, T.S.O.L’s first EP, Christian Death’s Only Theatre of Pain, 45 Grave’s Sleep in Safety, Social Distortion’s Mommy’s Little Monster, Bad Religion’s How Could Hell Be Any Worse? and many more. By the end of 1983, I had worked on 80 LA punk rock record covers. I was just there as it happened and I was part of it. A Facebook friend once said if you went to a show and Ed Colver wasn’t there, then you were at the wrong show. I lived 25 miles out of downtown and drove so many miles going to punk gigs. It seems inconceivable now, but there were gigs on almost every night, you could go out on a Tuesday evening and see an amazing punk gig in front of 30 people. It was just incredible, the people were unbelievable. I went to a lot of crazy gigs, I have tons of photographs of cops shutting down streets and giving kids hassle. The scene was full of dissatisfied suburban kids. I was quite a bit older than most of the people in the scene. A lot of them were just teenagers, but I got along with them, I wasn’t an outcast, nobody considered that I didn’t fit in.
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Were the people on the scene easy to photograph? From a photographer’s point of view, the scene back then was incredible – no photos passes, stickers, tags, nothing. It was just a small group of people hanging out at shows, there were probably just a couple hundred people in the whole LA county scene at the time I started going to punk shows and half of those were band members. People used to ask, ‘Are you into New Wave?’ and I’d go, ‘Fuck, no! I like punk rock!’ It always amazed me they were lumped together, because they have nothing in common. Did you and your friends on the scene feel as if there was something important happening? It was just so spontaneous, there was no pre-meditated plan, it was just incredible. I have since likened it to the original Beatnik movement and the original mid-60s hippy era, in that hardcore was a genuinely socially significant underground cultural revolution in music and art. To me, what was going on was just remarkable, it was vitally important. At the time, I didn’t think of those gigs as anything that would be considered historical, although it did feel important, I knew something incredible was going on. I have two filing cabinets full of negatives that I shot during a five-year period. If I had known how influential and important that scene would go on to become in musical history I would have shot twice as much. It really started gathering momentum around 1980, it kicked off in 1981 and by 1983 Black Flag was playing to 3,000 people at the Olympic Auditorium.
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Datamosh: An artistic intersection of Glitch and Punk Subculture
One time somebody jumped over me and smashed my flash. I couldn’t afford to buy a replacement so I got some duct tape and strapped the flash back on for the next gig. Then, during the gig, I had to change the film, so while I was still in the pit I pulled the tape off, quickly changed the film, then managed to reattach the flash, keeping the tape intact while in the pit. Finally, what do you stand for? I stand for integrity, artistic creativity and quality in my work.
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its own choice of and for oblivion.”
it is a vision that destroys itself by
Glitch Studies & The Glitch Art Manifesto
“Glitch studies is a misplaced truth;
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Some people see glitches as technological, while others perceive them as a social construction. It is useless to place one perspective above the other. Glitch studies needs to take place in-between, both, neither and beyond. Glitches do not exist outside of human perception. What was a glitch 10 years ago is, most often, not a glitch anymore - it might however have become a fetishized retro-commodity. This ambiguous contingency of the glitch depends on its constantly mutating materiality. The glitch exists as an unstable assemblage in which materiality is influenced by the medium’s construction, operation and content of the apparatus on the one hand; and the work, the writer, and the interpretation by the reader and/or user – the meaning – on the other. Thus, the materiality of glitch art is not (just) the machine on which the work appears, but a constantly changing construct that depends on the interactions between the text and its social, aesthetic and economic dynamics – and, of course, the point of view from which different actors are able to make meaning. Glitch studies attempts to balance nonsense and knowledge. It can be pursued through Glitchspeak, a vocabulary of new expressions, and an always growing language of digital culture. These expressions teach the speaker something about the inherent norms, presumptions and expectations of a language: what is not being said, what is left out. Glitch studies searches for the unfamiliar while at the same time it tries to de-familiarize the familiar. This study can show what is acceptable behavior and what is unacceptable, or outside the norm. To capture and explain a glitch is a necessary evil, which enables the generation of new modes of thought and action. When these modes become normalized, glitch studies shifts its focus or topic of study to find the current outsider in relation to a new technology or discourse. Glitch studies is a misplaced truth; it is a vision that destroys itself by its own choice of and for oblivion. The best ideas are dangerous because they generate awareness. Glitch studies is what you can just get away with.
1) The dominant, continuing search for a noiseless channel has been — and will always be — no more than a regrettable, ill-fated dogma. Acknowledge that although the constant search for complete transparency brings newer, ‘better’ media, every one of these improved techniques will always possess their own inherent fingerprints of imperfection.
2) Dispute the operating templates of creative practice; fight genres, interfaces and expectations! Refuse to stay locked into one medium or between contradictions like real vs. virtual, obsolete vs. upto-date, open vs. proprietary or digital vs. analogue. Surf the vortex of technology, the in-between, the art of artifacts!
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3) Get away from the established action scripts and join the avant-garde of the unknown.
Become a nomad of noise artifacts! The static, linear notion of information-transmission can be interrupted on three occasions: during encoding-decoding (compression); feedback; or when a glitch (an unexpected break within the flow of technology) occurs. Noise artists must exploit these noise artifacts and explore the new opportunities they provide.
4) Employ bends and breaks as a metaphor for difference. Use the glitch as an exoskeleton for progress. Find catharsis in disintegration, ruptures and cracks; manipulate, bend and break any medium towards the point where it becomes something new; create glitch art.
5) Realize that the gospel of glitch art also reveals new standards implemented by corruption.
Not all glitch art is progressive or something new. The popularization and cultivation of the avant-garde of mishaps has become predestined and unavoidable. Be aware of easily reproducible glitch effects, automated by softwares and plugins. What is now a glitch will become a fashion.
6) Force the audience to voyage the acousmatic videoscape.
Create conceptually synaesthetic artworks, that exploit both visual and aural glitch (or other noise) artifacts at the same time. Employ these noise artifacts as a nebula that shrouds the technology and its inner workings and that will compel an audience to listen and watch more exhaustively.
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7) Rejoice in the critical trans-media aesthetics of glitch artifacts.
Utilize glitches to bring any medium in a critical state of hypertrophy, to (subsequently) criticize its inherent politics.
8) Employ Glitchspeak (as opposed to Newspeak) and study what is outside of knowledge. Glitch theory is what you can just get away with! Flow cannot be understood without interruption or function without glitching. This is why glitch studies is necessary.
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Bottom Right: Flier By: Unknown
Bottom Left: Flier By: Unknown
Top: Flier by: Unknown
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Collective Contribution: The Artistic Collectives of Glitch & Punk
Datamosh: An artistic intersection of Glitch and Punk Subculture
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Opposite Page: Dean Samed, “Untitled”, Glitch Artists Collective
Bottom Left: James Usill, “Untitled”, Glitch Artists Collective
Top : Ian Montalbano, “Atagen”, Glitch Artists Collective
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Collective Contribution: The Artistic Collectives of Glitch & Punk
Datamosh: An artistic intersection of Glitch and Punk Subculture
98 Bottom: Mathieu St-Pierre, “Texting “, Glitch Artists Collective
Top: Nicolas Kouri / Collageno, “When the acid kicks in IV”, Glitch Artists Collective
(Opposite Page)
Bottom Right: Flier By: Unknown
Bottom Middle: Flier By: Unknown
Bottom Left: Flier By: Unknown
Top: RoyBot, Flier By: Unknown
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Collective Contribution: The Artistic Collectives of Glitch & Punk
Datamosh: An artistic intersection of Glitch and Punk Subculture
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Bottom: Oliver Reyes, “Escitalopram”, Glitch Artists Collective
Top: Collageno, “Office Hell”, Glitch Artists Collective
(Opposite Page)
Top: Mutt, “Untitled”, Glitch Artists Collective
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Collective Contribution: The Artistic Collectives of Glitch & Punk
Datamosh: An artistic intersection of Glitch and Punk Subculture
This feelin haunts me. Behind thes eyes The shell s so empty. Though I wo der if anyt
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Artistic Outlets: The “Art” of Glitch and Punk Subculture
ng
Datamosh: An artistic intersection of Glitch and Punk Subculture
se
seems
onthing
Matthieu St Pierre, “Pork Chop”, Video Still, 2013
Matthieu St Pierre, “Paxxxion”, 2014
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I want to live I wish I was dead
My heart aches to bleed. Artistic Outlets: The “Art” of Glitch and Punk Subculture
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I’m cheat from what see. Freedom h a doublefor me. I look in your eyes 106
holds -edge
n s and Artistic Outlets: The “Art” of Glitch and Punk Subculture
ted t I 107
I want to live. I wish I dead. I don’t w to think. I’m stuck here and 108
o
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Artistic Outlets: The “Art” of Glitch and Punk Subculture
Datamosh: An artistic intersection of Glitch and Punk Subculture
was
want . k I
Matthieu St Pierre, “Andong Tree”, Video Still, 2012
Matthieu St Pierre, “Hard Love 5”, 2012 Next Page: Matthieu St Pierre, “Caffeine 4”, 2012
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Artistic Outlets: The “Art” of Glitch and Punk Subculture
I don’t want to see. Make me close my eyes. I want to live. 111
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Right: ‘Ghost In The Machine’, Glitch Safari
Left: ‘Bus Sign Glitch’, Glitch Safari
Beauty In The Breakdown: Capturing Moments in the Wild
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Right: Jello Biafra (Dead Kennedy’s), 1982 Photo By: Edward Colver
Left: Photo By: Edward Colver
Beauty In The Breakdown: Capturing Moments in the Wild
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120 Right: ‘Lincolnshire Echo Screen Glitch’, Lincolnshire, UK Glitch Safari
Left: ‘Digital Billboard Glitch’, Gltich Safari
Previous Page (right): Digital Ad Glitch, Glitch Safari
Previous Page (left): Photo By: Edward Colver
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Next Page (right): ‘Grave Robbers’, 1982, Photo By: Edward Colver
Next Page: (left) ‘Sign on Broad Street’, Birmingham, UK, Glitch Safari
Right: ‘Street Sign Glitch’, Glitch Safari
Left: Jello Biatra (Dead Kennedy’s), 1982, Photo By: Edward Colver
Previous Page: Photo By: Edward Colver
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DataMosh List of Works: Beauty In The Breakdown: Capturing Moments in the Wild
“Grave Robbers” 1982, Photo By: Edward Colver 4ft x 8ft Print
GLITCH ART: “Spectre//Sound - Public Transportation Breakdown”, Glitch Safari 500 x 500 pixels “66 St. Station LCD Display Glitch” New York, NY, Glitch Safari 500 × 667 pixels “Lincolnshire Echo Screen Glitch” Lincolnshire, UK, Glitch Safari 500 x 500 pixels
Artistic Outlets: The “Art” of Glitch and Punk Subculture GLITCH ART: “Melting Ice Cream 4”, 2013 Mattieu St-Pierre 81 x 144.5cm Pigment Print “Past-Forward 5”, 2015 Mattieu St-Pierre 42 x 70cm Pigment Print “Paxxxion”, 2014 Mattieu St-Pierre 39.5 x 70cm Pigment Print
PUNK ROCK: “Jello Biatra (Dead Kennedy’s)”, 1982, Photo By: Edward Colver 4ft x 5ft Print “Henry Rollings (Black Flag)”, 1981 Photo By: Edward Colver 4ft x 9ft Print
“Pork Chop”, 2013 Mattieu St-Pierre Video Still “African Lion”, 2015 Mattieu St-Pierre 39.5 x 70cm, Pigment Print PUNK ROCK: “Padded Cell” Black Flag Album: Damaged, 1981 1:81 Minutes
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“Three Nights” Black Flag Album: My War, 1984 6:05 Minutes
“D_I_V_E” Syahed Hidayah 700 x 700 pixels Glitch Artist Collective
“What I See” Black Flag Album: Damaged, 1981 1:51 Minutes
PUNK ROCK FLIERS “Flea with Fear” Flier Original photo from: Marla Watson 5.5 x 8.5 inches
“Yes I know” Black Flag Album: 1982 Demo, 1982 2:25 Minutes
“Minor Threat”, Flier By: Randy ‘Biscuit’ Turner 5.5 x 8.5 inches
Collective Contribution: The Artistic Collectives of Glitch & Punk
“X” Flier, By: Unknown Artist 5.5 x 5.5 inches
GLITCH ARTIST COLLECTIVE:
“Black Flag” Flier, By: Unknown Artist 5.5 x 8.5 inches
“escitalopram” Oliver Reyes 450 x 600 pixels Glitch Artist Collective “When the acid kicks in VI” Nicolas Kouri / Collageno 500 x 500 pixels Glitch Artist Collective “Rascal Visual” Matt Trost 250 x 400 pixels Glitch Artist Collective
“Dead Kennedy’s” Flier, By: Unknown Artist 5.5 x 8.5 inches
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Bibliography Hebdige, Dick. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London, 1984, 1979. Pg. 130-132. Graffin, Greg. http://www.allidoispunk.com/about/greg-graffin-a-punk-manifesto/ , March 22, 2016. Artist Bio. http://www.mathieustpierre.com/#!bio/ck70 Glitch Artist Collective Description. http://tumblr.glitchartistscollective.com/ Mattieu St-Pierre Hot N’ Gold Interview. http://www.hotngoldmag. com/#!mathieu-st-pierre/c1aif Menkman, Rosa. Glitch Studies Manifesto. Pg. 338-347. Moran, Ian. Punk: The Do-It-Yourself Subculture. Social Sciences Journal, Volume 10, Issue 1, Article 13. September, 30, 2011. Moore, Ryan. Postmodernism and Punk Subculture: Cultures of Authenticity and Deconstruction. The Communication Review: Department of Sociology - University of Kansas. Taylor & Francis, 2004. Edward Colver Interview. http://blog.drmartens.com/edward-colver-interview-american-hardcore-punk-photography/. April 2, 2015. Colver, Edward. Blight at the End of the Funnel. Last Gasp, 2015. Turcotte, Bryan. Fucked Up + Photocopied: instant art of the punk rock movement. Gingko Press. 1999. Glitch Artists Collective. http://tumblr.glitchartistscollective.com/ Glitch Safari http://glitchsafari.tumblr.com/
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This publication accompanies the hypothetical exhibition DataMosh in the Warehouse District of Downtown Los Angeles, on view on October 10, 2016. This project was conceived and designed in the Typography 4: Print Editorial class at the Art Center College of Design. Authors: Dick Hebdige, Rosa Menkman, Greg Graffin, Ian Moran, Ryan Moore. Catalog design & edited by: Alexia Chuck Instructor: Stephen Serrato Printer: TypeCraft Typefaces: Akkurat Pro, Relative. Paper: List papers used in publication here Š 2016 by Art Center College of Design, 1700 Lida Street, Pasadena, CA 91103 All rights reserved. All images are Š the artists, reproduced with the kind permission of the artists and/or their representatives. Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders and to ensure that all the information presented is correct. Some of the facts in this volume may be subject to debate or dispute. If proper copyright acknowledgment has not been made, or for clarifications and corrections, please contact the publishers and we will correct the information in future reprintings, if any. ISBN 978-0-9802055-1-0
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