{"id":2113,"date":"2019-04-18T08:58:00","date_gmt":"2019-04-18T08:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gcornish.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/mhs123_spring2019\/?p=2113"},"modified":"2019-04-18T09:03:42","modified_gmt":"2019-04-18T09:03:42","slug":"the-blood-and-veins-of-machines-glitch-aesthetics-in-alexander-schuberts-serious-smile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gcornish.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/mhs123_spring2019\/assignments\/music-video-review\/the-blood-and-veins-of-machines-glitch-aesthetics-in-alexander-schuberts-serious-smile\/","title":{"rendered":"The Blood and Veins of Machines: Glitch Aesthetics in Alexander Schubert\u2019s \u201cSerious Smile\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Glitchy image, source: https:\/\/www.izotope.com\/en\/blog\/music-production\/5-artists-who-are-masters-of-glitch-music.html<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Technological development is tied with the concept of perfection\u2014people believed that, through inventions and discoveries, they were able to do things that needed to be done. Every new creation of technology is supposed to be perfect, because it serves specific purposes and follows a set of rules. At least that\u2019s what people expected from it: purposiveness, meaningfulness, and perfection. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, everything started to change while we step into the digital age, or, as some call it, the information age. The manipulative power of the Internet and the rise of consumer technologies create an unprecedented environment. As one receives vast information and acknowledges infinite technological possibilities, it becomes impossible for one to really harness them. We lose control of basically everything, because our choices are deeply influenced by the behaviors of technologies themselves; if, at first, it was human who decided what technology should do for us, it now seems that the technology is telling us what human should do. This exchanging of the two sides leads to disillusionment<\/a>: both the purpose of technology and the identity of human are lost, and people have long criticized many aspects in this situation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what if this \u201cperfect\u201d technology intentionally make mistakes? What if we no longer strive for improvement of its functionality? As a response to the existential problems provoked by the digital age, some artists propose new ways of looking at technology, and the one we are focusing on in this blogpost is called \u201cglitch aesthetics\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Glitches are not stranger to our technological environment. In fact, we encounter them everyday: turbulence of television signals, malfunctioning software, and instability of internet connection\u2026all have immediate influence on our user experience, and a glitch refers to a visual or physical manifestation<\/a> of an error. During a glitch, the system fails to carry out its tasks, and the failure is directly shown in ways such as flickers on a screen, an error message in the operational interface, or the skipping of a defective CD in the CD player<\/a>. Art works that deal with glitch aesthetics would intentionally expose or produce these manifestations of errors in technology, and what they attempt to present through such methods, according to the art organization \u201cGLI.TC\/H\u201d, is the exact moment of the technological failure which gives a window into the technology\u2019s abstract system, into the internal processes of its function<\/a>. For example, in the moment of a display error, the RGB lights on the screen dance in frenzy, showing its most basic constituents. These mistakes were supposed to be \u201cimperfections\u201d, and were to be avoided in order to let the technology function correctly; yet artists have created works that appropriate these \u201cimperfections\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
GLI.TC\/H webpage illustration, source: http:\/\/gli.tc\/h\/<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It is interesting for me to see artists presenting the imperfection of technology, because it provokes a sense of \u201cFrankensteinian\u201d nostalgia: as the technology refuses to reach its original goals, it almost seems that it is having its revenge on people\u2019s manipulation, and the thought that technology is claiming its own identities in turn calls to people, reminding them to find their authentic \u201cselves\u201d as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What will happen then, if one brings all these defects of machines back to the human body? A particular work serves especially well as an example of this concept.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Score except from Alexander Schubert\u2019s \u201cSerious Smile\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The score for Alexander Schubert\u2019s \u201cSerious Smile<\/em>\u201d, a piece written for three instrumentalists, a conductor, and live electronics, is notated completely by aleatoric methods. Word instructions tell the performers what kind of things they should do, for example, \u201cplay some high clusters\u201d is the only thing given to the pianist in the score at times. This means that specificity of pitches is not needed for the performance of this piece, but rather other aspects which I will discuss now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n