Abstract (short paper)

The paper proposes to re-examine a critical potential of glitches for studying contemporary media and computational technologies. Specifically, it shows how the dominant user interaction and digital representation narratives based on the illusion of seamless interaction, fluid continuity and perfect automation, can be critically challenged through emphasizing visual glitches in media content and in the GUIs. The research uses Heidegger’s things taxonomy (Conspicuousness, Obtrusiveness, Obstinacy) to conceptualize the ontic and aesthetic status of glitches that are manifesting in contemporary real-time, cloud-based, multimedia software. Postphenomenological standpoints developed by Peter Paul Verbeek and Don Ihde are also used to support the argument. Contemporary technological milieu is examined in the light of the “post-digital” approach (advocated i.e. by David Berry, Florian Cramer, Soren Pold & Christian Ulrik Andersen). The “Pirate Cinema” project by Nicolas Maigret, which makes the hidden activity and geography of P2P file sharing visible and the “Universal Texture” project by Clement Valla, which critically analyzes glitches in Google Earth, are used as case studys.

• Lukasz Mirocha, University of Warsaw, Faculty of “Artes Liberales”, PL

Full text (PDF) p.  327-329