Glitch Studies Manifesto

A glitch is an unintended break of (one of) the many flows within a technological system. It is a wonderful and frightening interruption that shifts a technology away from its ordinary form and discourse. For a moment I am shocked, lost, in awe, asking myself what this other utterance is, how was it created. Is it perhaps …a glitch? But once I named it, the momentum -the glitch- is no more…

A manic obsession with breaks, tipping points and disjointed paths have driven me to start an ongoing research i glitches and other noise artifacts. I am of the opinion that the dominant, continuing search for a noiseless channel has been, and will always be no more than a regrettable, ill-fated dogma. This is why I dispute the operating templates of creative practice by fighting genres, norms and believes.

In my opinion Glitchspeak is a vocabulary of new expressions; an always growing language, that can be used as an exoskeleton of progress. These acts teach something about the inherent norms, presumptions and expectations of former utterances. They can make apparent what is not being said or what is intentionally left out. But, I also realize that the gospel of glitch art sings about new norms implemented by corruption and as such, can have sublimely devastating consequences.

After Foucault stated that there can be no reason without madness and Gombrich wrote that there is no order without chaos, I agree with Virilio, who described that there can be no technological progression without the inherent accident.
I think that flow does not exist without interruption and that the concept of functionality would not exist without glitch. This is why there is a need for Glitch Studies; A study of what is outside of knowledge. This glitch theory is what I can just get away with.

You can now find the whole Glitch Studies Manifesto online (with cracked crack intro!!) here
As presented/performed at

– Blip Festival, New York, US. 18–12’09.
I performed parts of the manifesto during my Little-Scale visual set

– Media Playgrounds, NIMK/Montevideo, Amsterdam, NL. 12–12’09.
Goto80 and I performed 5 points of the manifesto on live television (Salto omroep) // with some black and white error!

– Pixxelpoint Festival, Nova Gorica, SL. 05–12’09. Regular lecture.

– Video Vortex Conference, Atomium, Brussels, BE. 20–11’09. Regular lecture.