Annie Schultz

5.26 Nothing New: Glitch Aesthetics as a Post-Digital Education (Paper)

Annie Schultz – Flagler College, St. Augustine, Florida, USA

Abstract:

In this paper, I suggest a glitch aesthetic as an educational tool for students living in a digital environment. By attending to analogue technologies which offer a more cumbersome approach to daily tasks, students are able to foreground their background: an attention to aspects of the digital world we live in that might fade to the background of our daily existence and consciousness. For example, the psychological titularity of scrolling, the dependably frequent sound of a phone buzzing on a surface, or the omnipresence of broadband and its intermingling with our biological systems. In order to explore the possibilities of a glitch aesthetic for foregrounding the background of digital life, I will turn primarily to Jean Baudrillard’s theory of hyperreality: the idea that the possibilities for abstraction are endless, resulting in an ever-spiralling alienation from the real. I put Baudrillard in conversation with existing scholarship in art education and philosophy of education on the aesthetics of cyberreality, resisting hyperreality in education, digital literacy, and post-internet art. I will also discuss specific examples of objects, media, and design styles that promote a glitch aesthetic – such as manual typewriters, vinyl records, retro futurism in literature and film, and the Frutiger Aero design style – and the educational possibilities therein. Finally, I suggest that, for educators, turning to post-internet artists who engage a glitch aesthetic might be helpful toward honing the critical analytic tools students need to live well in our current reality.