Re: [microsound] guitar distortion as the 1st glitch aesthetic?

[David Powers <cyborgk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Valid points...  I was contemplating the same kind of history myself... 
HOWEVER...  I wonder if this isn't stretching the definition of "glitch" 
too far.  Coltrane's extended techniques, after all, have a reasonably 
legitimate history in the jazz and R&B tradition, despite the more 
extreme forms they took in his hands (some of his experiments in rhythm, 
in my opinion, were more extreme in terms of the jazz tradition).  In 
fact, the concepts of "noise" or "distortion" seem to lose some of their 
impact when considered outside the Western musical tradition - noise and 
strange sounds abound in nonwestern music but they don't reference a 
tradition of "correct" performance and "pure" pitch.  Without such a 
context, all techniques and sounds are equally valid.

Glitch, however, is qualitatively different, in that it has a clear 
social reference, this time not in a performance practice, but in the 
practices of a hyperreal socius intent on using digital techniques to 
create a "more perfect than perfect" version of reality.  I see glitch 
as more akin to John Cage's music, in its relationship to chance and 
mistake, and its dismantling of tradition, than the novel or incorrect 
sounds created on a broken guitar amp.  To me, dadaism, John Cage, 
certain surrealist practices, and the cut-up techniques of William S. 
Burroughs are more valid reference points for glitch.  I would suggest 
that it would be useful to think beyond music specifically and grapple 
with what glitch means on the aesthetic level -

Glitch is not a musical technique, it is a digital technique that can be 
applied to multiple mediums.  If there were "Touch+Taste+Smell" machines 
we could databend and glitch these machines just as easily as we can do 
it with sound, visual, or computer programs.  Though I'm not sure how 
keen I am to taste and smell glitches, might spoil my appetite!

~David

John Hopkins wrote:

> > it occurred to me that overdriven guitar amps, and their eventual
> > (inevitably?) incorporation into the rock aesthetic is one of the
> > greatest examples of 'glitch' (or as cascone calls it, 'the aesthetics
> > of failure') at and early point, prior to digital technology. i'm
>
>
> You might consider including, for example, Coltrane's use (abuse) of 
> the sax, as well.  Also, I can remember live work by the Art Ensemble 
> of Chicago moves in that direction.  In a way, many have stretched the 
> instrument to the extreme (to, and beyond failure), to find a 
> particular expressive energy...
>
> labels like glitch perhaps only represent a contemporarization of a 
> consisted process of stretching the technological envelope of a 
> device...  if you compare "distortion" to "glitch" in a fundamental 
> way, not much difference...
>
> jh

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