CREATIVE FUEL 2014

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Top: [31] The Serpentine Gallery Pavilion: Designed by Sou Fujimoto, 2013. serpentinegallery.org. Bottom: [32] Antony Gormley: Stills of installation Breathing Room. antonygormley.com. Top: [33] Jeongmoon Choi: Birdcage is a colourful grid made of threads in various colours which create walls of light. jeongmoon.de. Left: [34] Chanel: Ready to wear, S/S 2013. chanel.com. Above: [35] Herve Van Der Straeten: Console Propagation, 2012 vanderstraeten.fr/en/ 19 LOWE COUNSEL / FUTURE SIGNS 2014 / CREATIVE FUEL 20
GLITCH The glitch has emerged as one of the defining characteristics/motifs of contemporary culture, celebrating the inconsistencies and faults created by digital (and analogue) technology. In the last year we have seen examples of glitch iconography appear in almost every creative medium – providing a shorthand for ‘now’ and offering a useful storytelling device used by artists and creatives. Taken literally, a glitch is a spike or change in voltage in an electrical current. The first recorded use of the word was in 1962 during the American space program when John Glenn used it to describe technical problems during the Apollo space mission. The term ‘glitch’ has gone on to mean an unlikely or irregular occurrence. Creatively this “aesthetic of failure” is usually represented by the sound or image of an audio device or digital technology malfunctioning, skipping or generally distorting, computer bugs, crashes or other system errors. Interestingly, the term was later made popular by the Matrix film and refers to the effect of a human experiencing déjà vu caused by machines altering the ‘simulated reality’ of the matrix. Glitch is about challenging the perfection of digital technology and also about trying to find or reveal the soul in the machine. The last few years have seen a renewed interest from artists in capturing or recreating ‘natural’ examples of glitches or faults created by overused or faulty analogue or early digital equipment. You could argue that part of the reason the style is currently so popular and feels so ‘now’ is to do with an implicit subliminal nostalgia for our digital past, with its poor quality video and low download speeds. The ‘Postcards from Google Earth’ project by Clement Valla presents an intriguing set of images of apparent glitches in Google Earth photos. These photos appear to reveal unnatural faults in our perceptions – like real life glitches in the matrix, they hint at ghosts in the (Google) machine. The popularity of the aesthetic has also increased due to the appearance of apps such as ‘Glitch’ and ‘Image Glitch’, which enable the use of digital bugs and errors as a design feature. In photography the style has evolved from the basic digital pixelated glitch to a range of more painterly effects. More recently we can see the style now infiltrating a broad range of media, including photography, graphic design, film and 3-D product and furniture design. Lesser Gonzalez Alvarez, the US artist and commercial illustrator, has produced Vinyl Abstraction. This work is inspired by the incredible opening line to William Gibson’s ‘Neuromancer’- “The sky above the port was the color of a television, tuned to a dead channel”. The artist uses a digital collage technique created from corrupted scanned imagery. What is interesting about glitch art is that it is a rejection of the order and perfection of digital technology and is about breaking free from the ‘grid’. We are even seeing ‘glitch’ infiltrating 3D project design as in the groundbreaking “Good Vibrations’’ storage unit. This is not a distorted digital photo – it’s a cabinet that’s been intricately carved to look like one. Created by Italian designer Ferruccio Laviani for furniture brand Fratelli Boffi, the Good Vibrations storage unit was carved from oak by a CNC machine (a computer assisted manufacturing technique). Above: [36] Clement Valla, Postcards from Google Earth. www.postcards-from-google-earth.com. Opposite: [37] Ingmar Spiller, NINA. www.ingmarspiller.de. 21 LOWE COUNSEL / FUTURE SIGNS 2014 / CREATIVE FUEL 22
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Page 7 and 8: DARK MATTER Dark matter represents
Page 9: grid Grid represents a visual langu
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Page 15 and 16: MINERAL WORLD Mineral World can be
Page 17 and 18: BAROQUE BAROQUE describes a period
Page 19 and 20: WATERCOLOUR Watercolour is both an
Page 21: CREATIVE FUEL CREDITS 1. Futurism e

CREATIVE FUEL 2014

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