By Marc Stumpel
Today, the Glitch Moment(um), INC Network Notebook #4 was officially launched at STEIM, Amsterdam.
In this book, Rosa Menkman, Dutch visualist, theorist and curator makes sense of recent glitch art and culture: technically, culturally, critically, aesthetically and finally as a genre. Menkman brings in early information theorists not usually encountered in glitch’s theoretical foundations to refine a signal and informational vocabulary appropriate to glitch’s technological moment(um) and orientations.
The glitch takes on a different form in relation to noise, failure or the accident. It transitions between artifact and filter; between radical breakages and commodification processes. Menkman shows how we need to be clearer about the relationship between the technical and cultural dimensions of glitch culture. Honing in on the specificities of glitch artifacts within this broader perspective makes it possible to think through some of the more interesting implications of glitched media experience. Using a critical media aesthetic orientation, Menkman addresses the ongoing definitional tensions, paradoxes, and debates that any notion of glitch art as a genre must negotiate, rather than elude.
The release of the Glitch Moment(um) is the kickoff of the GLI.TC/H Festival 2011 in Amsterdam at STEIM and PLANETART. GLI.TC/H 2011 is an International Noise && [DIRTY] New Media Event that includes works from over 100 participants from more than a dozen countries, taking place in virtual-space at http://gli.tc/h and in real-space from Nov 3 – 6 in Chicago, US; Nov 11 – 12 in Amsterdam, NL; Nov 19 in Birmingham, UK.
The GLI.TC/H 2011 event has been successfully crowdfunded on Kickstarter. Following the 2010 festival in Chicago, GLI.TC/H brings together those inspired, curious or provoked by glitches and provides an open platform to break things, share work and wares, an develop ideas. Thinkers and artists; makers and breakers converge to celebrate technological catastrophe.
GLI.TC/H is an open community that brings people together in panels, discussions, workshops and performances. There is no single definition of Glitch. In the book, however, Menkman delineates and explores technical, social and community based definitions of glitching. Cultural and technical flows and functions are designed to be taken for granted, but cannot be understood without interruptions of noise, feedback, and compression. Erroneous and/or intentionally created artifacts.
Glitch is becoming a prominent area of study and The Glitch Moment(um) is a an essential starting point for understanding Glitch art and culture.
Download The Glitch Moment(um) PDF.