Glitch Art on Tezos: 3 Years of Beautiful Glitches

Accidental Glitch Error in Bryce 3D by 猫 シ Corp. (catsystemcorp), Minted May 3, 2021 (left); and Universal Unfolding by Anya Asano, minted March 13, 2021 (right); 2 of the first self-identified “glitch” artworks minted on HEN are both early examples of glitches and Glitch Art intersecting with 3D.

Tezos and Glitch Art go together since the beginning, that is, early 2021 when the spirit of H=N was born and the glitches began. From HEN (Hic Et Nunc) to objkt, and any place artists and collectors gather around Digital Art on Tezos, you find amazing Glitch Art. Glowing, glitching, and thriving. This new Glitch Art of the last three years redefines Glitch Art itself, changing its shape. People are innovating, creating, collecting and embracing Glitch Art everyday on the Tezos blockchain. Glitch Art quickly became a defining kind of Crypto Art, a pillar of culture and community. How did this happen? When did Glitch Art become so important for Tezos? Where does this Glitch Art come from? Is this the same Glitch Art as before or has it become new again? How do we understand all of the electrifying Glitch Art we see being made today in these early 2020s? Who made these feverish first years so fun, focused, and full of glitches?

BUZZCUT by Bittty Labs, Minted Apr 24, 2021 (left); and FAKE BASQUIAT SKULL #7 by WhichWitchWasIt, Minted Aug 25, 2022 [reversed with artist’s permission] (right); DEATH PUNK founder (Bittty Labs) and member (WhichWitchWasIt) both made early Glitch Art on Tezos, initiating and organizing communities which continue to influence Crypto Art. 

By 2021, Glitch Art had already existed for over 40 years. Glitch Art pioneers are here, building and sharing. Artists directly involved or inspired by decades of Glitch Art started to make their work on Tezos as soon as it became possible. Some of the earliest Digital Art minted on Tezos is Glitch Art. Just a few days after Rafael Lima deployed HEN, sandro minted code2pixels - glitch 01 on March 5, 2021, becoming objkt number 523. Other folks quickly entered the space and also began shaping this new era of Glitch Art, forming a glitch family tree which continues to grow today. Folks joining now begin their own journey and have their own first encounters. As someone making Glitch Art since the mid-late 1990s, before it was even known or understood, I fall in love with Glitch Art on Tezos over and over again, watching with excitement as I see artists discover their own paths, forming new relationships to glitch.

FlamboCAT by Videogramo AKA Francoise Gamma, Minted October 18, 2021 (left); and Reading a book by Kim Asendorf, Published on November 15, 2021 at 18:00 on fxhash (right); are also both works of art by important Glitch Artists whose Internet and Digital Art predates NFTs.

Glitch Art always changes shape. For instance, as frontier technologies become obsolete, new media present new opportunities to surprise us. This is why I define Glitch Art as the Art of Surprise. Glitch Art consistently rewires well-known signal paths across analog electronics and compute powers. At the same time, artists discover new approaches. In this Fourth Industrial Revolution, we all experience fast and dramatic technological and social change at unprecedented rates. 21st-century cultural transitions to digital networks (Internet, mobile, cloud, AI,…) quickly become familiar and even feel ‘natural,’ especially to those born into them. But these extraordinary changes transform how we experience the world, see ourselves, and understand Art. Tezos, decentralization, and Open Source are keys to telling this story and understanding Glitch Art now.

Saccharine Biomes: Hills #1 by Empress Trash, Minted February 4, 2022, (left), and lobito de las nieves by ayahuasca, Minted December 21, 2021 (right) are 2 early CCO Glitch Art works which explicitly state that they are freely open and available (in the Public Domain). 

But, what exactly is this Glitch Art anyway? Do you know it when you see it? Is it all bright colors and self-reflexive computer crashes full of corrupted files and punk skulls? 

Glitch Art is more than an aesthetic, style, or filter. If we time-travel through 1960s Electronic Art, 1970s Punk, 1980s Cyberpunk, 1990s Internet, net(dot)art, and Y2K jumping into the turn of the 21st Century with the 2000s social media such as Tumblr, 2010s Vaporwave, Seapunk, and superniches, we land in early 2020s Crypto Art where we find Glitch Art is a living connection, a life-blood running through all of these eras. Glitch Art, the Art of Surprise, is a vastly international Digital Art movement, a community committed to exploring the unexpected. We are excited by errors, instabilities, and the glitches that new technologies always create. When they inevitably go ‘wrong’ or misbehave, they surprise us. This element of surprise is a magical and majikal (transformative) moment. We feel the Glitch Affect in our bodies, our hearts and minds. It sparks our imagination of what ‘could happen’. You know what Glitch Art is because you know it when you feel it!

Data Baer by Pastelae, Minted February 17, 2022 (left), and GM PAIN by hAyDiRoKeT, Minted March 24, 2023 (right); engage now recognizable and popular forms (ie 3D turntable-style 360° view and flickering Animated GIFs, made at least partially, with AI Art). 

Tezos’ accessibility, the low cost of entry, and intensely passionate art community creates a vibrant ecosystem driving contemporary Glitch Art. Access and entry into the ecosystem is famously open and inclusive, promoting experimentation and rapid growth over the last 3 years. These characteristics also define a digitalPunk approach. Punk culture was originally known for being radically inclusive, self-defined, and transgressive. DIY/DIT energies are raw intensities anyone can use to express themselves. As Tony Moon wrote in 1976: “This is a chord, this is another, this is a third. Now form a band.” This statement (from Sideburn #1, a British punk zine) became a core identity. A famous myth from early Punk Rock tells us that anyone who saw a Sex Pistols show started their own bands. This punk ethos becomes a ‘spirit of HEN’ and a ‘spirit of Glitch.’

DOS Punk X by MAX CAPACITY, Minted October 31, 2021 (left); and ∴∂ø∴✸▷➲∆ by l__lll__l_l_ AKA llllll__lllllll AKA crashtxt AKA jimpunk, Minted September 24, 2023 (right); both artworks created by Digital Artists with longstanding commitments to Glitch Art and digitalPunk approaches. 

Where do we go from here? 

Tezos' accessibility opens a Digital Art doorway, unlocking futures full of experimentation and variation. Some say Tezos is an underground, but those of us who have been around know that overgrounds and undergrounds can cross-circuit, change places, flip-flop, become one another in the blink of an Animated GIF. For instance, the file format of the Animated GIF (GIF 89a, publicly available in 1990) is even older than the Web of 1992’s Mosaic browser. Internet changes everything and today artists are making Glitch Art with technologies older than they are. And it all feels brand new, even to an old-skull like me. This is a kind of resilience born in these three years of art-making despite market conditions, booms and busts, bears and bulls. We continue to connect, grow, branch, fork, instantiate, and shape Glitch Art futures together on Tezos!

bootleg soul by uczine, Minted October 4, 2022 (left) and ghost.2001.11.6.18.31.0 by Auriea Harvey, Minted September 13. 2024 (right); contemplate how our memories of the past become glitches in our ghosts’ futures. 

* Animated GIFs in the article are displayed as stills


Explore further Glitch Art on Tezos:

Analog Video Union 

https://objkt.com/@avunion

The inclusive "Glitch Art" tag on objkt

https://objkt.com/tokens?search=glitch%20art


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