Haunted by the Glitch: Technological Malfunction - Critiquing the Media of Innovation

Abstract

The glitch: an unexpected moment in a system resulting in the appearance of a malfunction. Commonly found within software, video games, digital images, film, and audio. In a world of digital perfectionism and sleek sonic design, why do artists now seek to re-associate the sounds of computational error into contemporary music? The “aesthetics of failure”, and subsequent glitch music sub-genre, emerged in the 1990s, deliberately using and exploiting technological systems as sound materials for composition. Whilst exploring the technological innovations and artistic movements compounding the rise of this new musical phenomenon, we will also investigate the genres link to French philosopher Jacques Derrida's concept of hauntology. This will give us an insight into the human anxieties associated with a wavering faith in technological progress and modernity when it came to the turn of the millennium. Whilst the last century was spent perfecting the sound recording, the availability of the glitch has revolutionised modern music. We now seem to be entering a “post-digital” era, concerned primarily with the rapidly changing relationships we have with technologies, as well as our increasing dependence on them. The internet has provided the ultimate archival space to reminisce and re-contextualise all sound materials, even those once seen as defective.