The first source of inspiration came from the artist Alvin Lucier and his work “I am Sitting in a Room” 1969. This work was created through Lucier recording a short paragraph of him talking. This paragraph was repeatedly recorded over and over again, overlapping the previous recording each time. This process meant that by the end of it, the original voice was completely destroyed and unrecognisable, as it had turned into a loud screeching noise. The catalyst to Lucier creating this artwork was due to the fact that he had a stutter. By recording his voice he was “attempting to smooth out his stutter.” (MoMA). Stutters can be considered as a human glitch as they are unpredictable and also uncontrollable. This is what inspired and led me to my first two experiments.
The first experiment was of me attempting to re-perform Lucier’s method of generating a screeching noise through overlapping recordings. I however changed the statement to a definition about glitches instead. The results turned out to be the same as Lucier’s.
The Second experiment was a stem from the first. I was fiddling around with the program GarageBand and I discovered how easy it was to overlap recordings with each other. So from this I decided to record another statement about time and overlapped the original recording with the final recording to make some sort of eerie soundtrack. I liked the way that this sounded so I opened it up onto audacity and continued to play around with the sound effects trying to glitch it as much as possible.
Through continued research, I found a video on YouTube about datamoshing/ videobending. Datamoshing in a video is where two videos overlap each other, however at the point of intersection, the videos start to merge into each other creating a pixelated transition. This is seen in the research from my second artist inspiration; David OReilly and his work “Compression Reel.”
My third and fourth experiment was inspired through this idea of datamoshing. I downloaded the programs; FFmpegx and Avidemux2 so I could create this glitched type of video. I achieved it by compressing the videos down to a small size, changing the frame rate as well as the keyframe rate. I then deleted all the “I” frames which are the moving frames. By doing this it allowed me to achieve the pixelated effect on the screen when people and objects moved within the video.
My third artist inspiration came from a Mexico based artist named Ciler. His subject matter focuses on dehumanising people, especially figures associated with war. He achieved this sense of dehumanisation through glitching out their faces. To do this he used a scanner and moved the images so he could rupture them. Through researching this artist, I found that a lot of other artists associated with glitch that also have subject matters to do with politics and war.
This led me to my final artist inspiration.
Wolf Vostell is an artist who uses the Décollagist style in his artworks. Instead of collecting pieces to make an artwork, Vostell “took the idea of décollage to the streets, deforming and manipulating posters in public places.” (thecreatorsproject). This allowed him to expose “the violence of post-war Germany and its newfound US-inspired consumerism.”
From the last two artist inspirations; Clier and Wolf Vostell, it helped create the concept behind my final glitch artwork. I explored famous speeches in politics throughout history. This includes; Martin Luthier King Jr.’s speech “I have a dream” 1963, Charlie Chaplin’s speech in “The Great Dictator” 1940 as well as the speech by Franklin D. Roosevelt declaring war on Japan in 1941. By manipulating these speeches through editing parts out and manipulating the voices, it creates a glitch.
The glitched screeching noises were formed through my experimentation inspired by Alvin Lucier, and the pixels were formed through my experimentation from learning to datamosh. Through all these layers the final product is a hyper real, recontextualised, glitched speech. It is commenting on how humanity isn’t irreplaceable, however in itself it can be flawed or corrupted like a glitch as we all have our own perception on what humanity is. These flaws are what can contribute to the glitch in human society where we are programmed to feel violence is a necessity.
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