Is it really a glitch?

The topic for today’s class is Materialities: Code and the readings assigned were “Code.Surface II Code. Depth” by Rita Raley; “The Poetics and Politics of Computer Code in Latin America: Codework, Code Art, and Live Coding” by Eduardo Ledesma and the reading by Nathan Jones, “Glitch Poetics: The Posthumanities of Error” in The Bloomsbury Handbook of Electronic Literature. The question guiding today’s discussion is “how code’s materiality and aesthetics and glitch poetics relate to politics of writing?”

            Those of us that work with computers have at some point experienced a glitch. The Oxford dictionary defines a glitch as “A sudden, usually temporary malfunction or fault of equipment,” and we all know how frustrating at times that can be. Nonetheless, for glitch artists a glitch is not necessarily an issue or an uncomfortable experience. They have taken possession of this apparent “computer malfunction” and transform it into subversive messages. The readings mentioned above talk about how a glitch operates and how many different artists have transformed them into political acts of activism.

            The article by Ledesma mentions how different artist and specially Latin American Artist use code as a “new political modernism, representing the cutting edge of a critique against post-industrial, capitalist society.” (95) In a way they present their works as “practices of resistance”. Ledesma furthermore explains, “the Latin American artists I examine… target their art to disrupt, introduce glitches and viruses into the code’s well-ordered fabric, to question its rules, and crash, or at least expose, its algorithms.” (97) Ledesma considers that Artist such as Giselle Beiguelman, Antonio Mendoza and Mitzi Olvera are some of the leading Latin American figures using codework as a political act.

            Some of the codeworks she cites on her article are Beiguelma’s “//**Code-Up” (2004); Mendoza’s “subculture.com” (2003); and Olvera’s Live Coding Performances in Mexico City (2010-2014). Accoring to Ledesma, these artists through their works attempt to pose a critique to the consumerism, capitalism, and political corruption affecting society.

            One of the works that did impress me was Mendoza’s subculture.com. His work is artistically designed as a glitch. However, this glitch is full of meaning. It shows a lot of different images and texts that make the reader observer question or analize the function of technology and internet, specially when it presents the line, “internet you such”. It also poses a critique to capitalism. It has taken over all aspects of human society and mechanical/technological spaces. His works then can be read as a resistance to capitalism and political ideologies.

Questions: 

1) How e-capitalism pushes artist to rethink their work?

2) Ledesma mentions that "those artist who have access to the world of programming are already working from a privileged position, even as Latin Americans" are this artists aware of that and if so how they incorporate the less-privileged in their works in order to respond to e-capitalism?