Gameplay Journal Entry #6

Glitch Art: RGB Channel Shifting

Glitch Art could be overlooked and dismissed as easy or lazy. Art that is done with the help of computers or machines with little input from an actual person. So how can glitch art, art that is created mostly by a program and not an “artist”, be considered real art? I found out that glitch art is not easy or lazy at all. I tried my hand at glitch art and my opinion has been altered. The program I used is called Processing. Yes, I used a program to help randomize the RBG output of an image, but I still had to tweak its settings and through countless iterations, finally producing an image that was visually appealing. I now see that much like the tools of a traditional artist, a program to create art is just another tool. It is up to the person using the tool, the “artist”, to create it and determine when it finally becomes art. The final piece may have been created randomly through a program, but the result that is called art is not random at all.

Ferreira and Ribas argue that “in order for glitch to work as a critical element, the audience has to be able to recognize it as an intended feature of the work, and not as an actual technical failure” (115). So, when the audience can recognize the appeal of the piece or the message that the artist is expressing, the piece becomes a work of art. I had to run the program nearly 100 times to finally produce something that I found visually interesting. The majority of the images not chosen were either completely unrecognizable or boring.

My attempt at RGB Channel Shifting:

Sources:

Pedro Ferreira and Luisa Ribas, “Post-Digital Aesthetics in Contemporary Audiovisual Art” xCoAx2020