Action Research: Contemporary Digital Artists and Their Impact

This assignment involves conducting action research on contemporary digital artists, with a specific focus on Rosa Menkman and her work in glitch art. The research delves into Menkman's background, artistic and technological impact, and her exploration of visual artifacts in both analog and digital media. The analysis highlights the concept of the glitch as an interruption that redefines an object's form and meaning, as well as the significance of artifacts and noise in art. The assignment also touches upon the culture of continuous technological improvement and how new technologies are built upon older ones, exploring the inherent flaws and obsolescence that arise. The student's research includes the artist's background, artistic and technical influences, and a critical analysis of their aesthetics, with a focus on the impact of glitch art and related concepts like artifacts and noise. The assignment includes images of Menkman's artwork and references to support the analysis.

Running head: ACTION RESEARCH CONTEMPORARY DIGITAL ARTISTS
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ACTION RESEARCH CONTEMPORARY DIGITAL ARTISTS
Name of Student
Institution Affiliation

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Action Research Contemporary Digital Artists
Essentially, art is dynamic and contemporary artist borrow one or two ideas from the
ancient masterpieces of art. Whenever there is a discussion about glitch art, and resolution Rosa
Menkman has to come in the picture. Rosa Menkman is a Dutch curator, art theorist as well as a
visual artist who specialized in glitch art and resolution. She was born on 3rd April 1983 in
Arnhem and in her time-based works she incorporated mines software glitches and video glitch
art, (Menkman, 2011). She practiced the Institute of Network Cultures published her work in the
University of Amsterdam and her research on glitch art in a book titled "The Glitch Moment
(um)."
Rosa Menkman has a tremendous artistic and technological impact on contemporary art. The
main focus of her work is to highlight the visual artifacts that are accidentally created in analog
media as well as the digital media. Rosa pronounces the glitch as a "wonderful interruption that
shifts an object away from its ordinary form and discourse, towards the ruins of destroyed
meaning" just similar to punctum connotations. Glitch is explained as either a simulated or actual
break from conventional or expected information flow in digital communication that results to
perceived error or accident.
Rosa Menkman has several artworks including Vernacular of File Formats and The
Collapse of Pal which is a national television performance presented in May 2010. This
performance is visual and applies the theory of glitch of art. The performance symbolizes the
termination of the PAL signal that led to the rise of the DVB signal. Although PAL signal was
timed out due to the introduction of the DVB signal, there are some traces of the old signal in the
new "better" message. The Angel of History tries to illustrate how the new technologies which
are considered to be better are built upon the older technologies. Although the new technology

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may seem preferable compared to the older one, it also has inherent flaws. Thus the culture of
constant improvement is very crucial in the development of new technologies.
Rose artwork also touches on the art of Artifacts and the Art of Noise Artifacts. The first
form of mechanical noise was as a result of humans building technologies. Most of the artworks
may not be similar, but they are all as a result of the persistent upgrade. As much as the
persistent update leads to the invention of superior technologies it also makes technologies to
become obsolescent very fast. According to information theory noise is considered to possess a
unique set of connotations and has been differentiated into direct and statistic interference of
information. In digital communication, the interruption or noise is classified into
decoding/encoding, glitch, and feedback artifacts. Contemporary artists use these interruptions to
come up with impulsive media specific artifacts. This is evidence in several artifacts such as
Sega Mega Drive 2 by Gijs Gieskes and Codec by Paul Davis.
The meaning of noise is complex, and the information theory cannot explicitly define it
since its definition differs with perspective. Etymologically, noise can be referred to as state of
alarm, aggression, and powerful sound phenomena in nature such as storm, roaring sea, and
thunder. However, the word noise is used as a figure of speech in art and the social context. The
negative definition of noise is also considered to have positive consequences such as the
improvement of technologies.
Just as the order cannot exist without chaos, technological progress cannot exist without
an inherent accident. Similarly, based on this I can unequivocally say that we cannot understand
flow without understanding interruption either can we understand functioning without
understanding glitching. Therefore glitch studies are critical in art since it tries to balance
knowledge and nonsense. The glitch survives as a rickety assemblage where the materiality is

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subjective the construction of the medium, its operation, and content of the apparatus on the one
hand; and on the other side by the writer, the work and the readers' interpretation, (Harrison,
2016). The changing constructs which are dependent on the interaction between the text and the
social, aesthetic and economic dynamics determine the materiality of glitch art.
In conclusion, art is dynamic, and it continuously changes just as the technologies. Just
as the technologies, the new art is usually built upon the earlier art masterpieces and theories.
Glitch Studies by Rose Menkman illustrates the culture of continuous improvement that is
caused by the inherent accident.
Below are few images of Rosa Menkman artwork

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References
Harrison, M. (2016). Glitches and Green Worlds in the Sonnets. Shakespeare Studies, 44, 162.
Menkman, R. (2011). The glitch moment (um) (p. 30). Amsterdam: Institute of Network
Cultures.