What is the glitch?
Error code 404
Memory, knowledge,
A field of pixelated sand
Unconsolidated digitized material
A malfunction
The glitch is a break in the nature of reality
It tells us something is wrong
Our device will not provide us with a promised service
All is not as we thought it was
Suddenly,
the world is not bending time and space to provide us with a need
With a want
With a desire
The glitch calls attention to the constructed nature of the world.
By calling attention to the potential “brokenness” of things.
It de-contextualizes
It de-locates
It leaves us, for a moment like an eternity, staring at the remnants of our world
Glitching then, can be a tactic
A strategy
A tool for subverting expected notions
A weapon for the deconstruction of normative perceptions
If the norm is breakable, fallible, fragile,
Then perhaps the norm is not so entrenched, so unchangeable
Perhaps a new world isn’t so impossible
What if?
What if the continually blurring boundaries between the digital and the real continue to disintegrate?
What if it became everyday to inhabit your desktop like your home,
What if it became unnecessary to tell the difference
What if it became banal to breathe data like air
What if the cyberspace became real space became hyperreal space.
In this world, what would it mean to glitch?
Would malfunction become a psychedelic experience?
Would spam become an act of violence?
Could your reality become susceptible to attack?
Your world becoming clay, easily molded, shifted, changed, dissolved with the right key in the wrong hand?
WATCHER: The first signs of morning are repeating bird calls. One, maybe two actually, you aren't quite sure; tiny visitors have come to your bedside to signal the new day. You might call it melodious. The song is sharp almost painful. The birds have a harsh metallic drawl to their notes. As if an old recording of birdsong is being piped through rusting ribbed metal tubing, jumping of saturated walls as the sounds makes their way up through grates in the city floor. The calls somehow soothe and scar. From the dusty corner memory banks of your childhood you find yourself remembering tiny animated blue bobbles, flitting around some, many, lovelorn protagonist(s). You think of the preselected alarm tone that feels as if it may scrape you physically from your bed. You know both are imitations
YOU: I open my Eyes, i'm never quite prepared for the mornings, the moments before i've fully acknowledged a new day feel brimming with potential, many times also fear. The quadrasecond before my synapses finish flaring and the message finally makes it to my brain, are as if the world has yet to exist. As if the world cannot yet be definite. I soak in the silence. Silence like white noise. All information and no information comprehensible. And then all at once, I am aware. The world is here, I am part of it, and I have to get to work.
As I unwind myself groggily from the covers and think into action the morning edition I consider how impossible it should be to be late. Most people never are. But I enjoy the infallibility, planned imperfection might as well become my hobby. My hand combs through a thoroughly knotted tuft of hair as I lazily let info bytes scroll through a ticker on the wall ahead. The weather report spurts and stalls. I have to jiggle my Ear (I always have to jiggle my Ear) and the stream continues again.
Purposefully setting an alarm to leave me with just enough time to catch my train is just mild play in rebellion against my own self interest. But I outright refuse on principle to wake up to a feed on full blast. My morning vision is set to as low noise as possible. I invite only the essentials, a weather report, traffic report, and major global developments feed, low lighted and sliding across my bare walls are my only decoration, and also my only source of light. With a slight bend in the pinky and the command stream in my head, the room brightens slightly, deep purples, bright blues the subtle lighting of dawn. The brightness has not appeared but has been intensified, as if the volume of the darkness has been lowered. I have not turned on the light, but become aware of it, simply perceiving the room to be brighter than I previously allowed myself to.
THE CITY: This is the City_net Morning Stream. Cloudy with showers this morning, with overcast skies for the rest of the day… low sun for this afternoon...ozone levels will be low in the outer boroughs with a spike towards midday... residents are advised to….] The weather ticker droles on, [The City_net assistant continues listing weather reports fading into a lower volume as it continues. one sharp bird call rings out, filling your ears and gone in a moment]
YOU: There's very little time now, I yawn and head towards the shower.
WATCHER: You shower quickly, while slowly letting more information from the feed seep into the general display on your Eyes. By the time you've finished dressing, the feed is on full blast. Messages from family, a friends’ birthday coming up soon, traffic incidents; your train is involved. You really are going to be late. Advertisements have already begun to clog the field. Every once in awhile a crowd of them will become a real nuisance and fully block your view. You blink selecting and moving them to as a low volume a channel as possible. If they float there unattended for long enough they'll close and dissipate on their own. Though they will come back. They always come back.
There are also the roaming virtual detritus of nearby open public chat rooms and messages. Conversation happening in other units, other buildings. the least accessible are remnants from around the city. You need to update your firewalls, but know you can't afford it this month, you tell yourself not to even dream of it. It's not so bad though, you can mute them. send them to as low a visible channel as possible. You can't completely stop them. They run on the same code as all the applications, tickers, widgets that you do need. If you try to single out the code it will confuse the system. It may think you want to delete something you actually want. You mute them. They always come back too.
YOU: Before rushing out the door I open two more widgets. Air quality will be average for most of the day. But that ozone spike later could be annoying. Luckily i’ll still be at Hudson Yards during the worst of it, i’ll be fine until I start heading home. The second is a community watch feed. The last thing I need now is a “random” identification scan. No one has posted any sightings of drones. Though that never means there aren't any outside.
My quiet settings don’t help for long. I attempt to prepare myself while making my way down the stairs, but there is no readying for the assault to the senses that begins once I leave my building door. Adverts flood my vision. The fish market and the grocers down the block. All are having sales. I adjust my Ears again. I’d rather just hear the noise of the city. I often think the streets only have two settings; empty and quiet or loud and brimming with life. The slow trickle of my neighbors on Avery turns into a steady stream and then full river of early morning commuters. As I turn unto Main St, The air fills with loud Mandarin and the smell of cooking meat, I speed past parents dragging laughing children and trucks pulling to markets unloading their wares. The city is also waking, also coming into being. I chose Flushing for many reasons. Even though access to City_net is less secure and sure out here, the rents mostly hadn’t skyrocketed. It was affordable. And I felt invisible. I didn’t speak a word of the Mandarin that fills teh air here. “It’s strange how comforting that can be” I sometimes tell myself. Strange how casually I move between erasure and finding sanctuary in invisibility. I trip a little when another advert flickers for a second. I want to check and see when my train is arriving, but a glance at the clock tells me it would make more sense to book it than to wait for a passing uptick in signal. The connection to the City_net is weaker here, farther from the data hubs of the financial/corporate districts. Everything still feels like the city under construction, The city the way it used to be, with the casual veneer of a dream, the illusion of technology at your fingertips didn’t get rid of the causal inconsistencies of daily life. With each passing block the street fills with more morning commuters, the river collecting from tributaries, migrants preparing for the day. The soft hum of carrier and patrol drones get’s louder the closer I get to the number 7 stop. I pull my hood up as I rush below ground. I make it just barely unto the train
Theres a flash of staic in my Eyes and Ears. I think i’ve lost my entire visual field but the moment passes in a second. I’ve forgotten about it by the time the train doors close...
WATCHER: You find slight solace on the train. There’s not much you can do at this point. You’ll get there when you get there. The trains are such interesting places. Vacuums, migrating nowheres. But spaces in and of themselves. A nexus of energy, cosmic particles, static.. People in and out. You are every being in this city here, and no one all at once. Take a moment and consider the other passengers. Trains are like dynamic microcosms of the places they pass through. Of the few in your car, most are elderly. A slightly younger couple in the corner drink coffee while speaking in quiet rumblings and murmurs.
A stop, an exchange.
Many of these new travelers sit and plug directly, almost immediately playing games, or scrolling through messages. They let the train chairs steady their bodies, eyes glaze, fingers slit and scroll through the air in front of them. One of the older passengers tuts. You aren't paying attention, eyes scrawling through your own messages, another firing, a schedule change. You only break away to watch as the train speeds over the Queensboro. The bridge at sunrise is everyday, banal at this point. But you can’t help but watch each time, losing yourself, in the deep blue skies, shining grey river, worn tussling, wired, patchwork of the city. It’s here that you notice some of your co passengers. You know that for these passengers, they are always as if in a dream. They are full payers. Having higher city_net privileges, along with higher paying or more critical jobs than your own, though some might even be co-workers. They are fully immersed, guided by projected positioning software, living in the world, but completely within their own. Their eyes fully glossed over as the train passes over the bridge, you wonder what they see when they look out the window. Is your world blocked, erased, obfuscated? Does the train seemingly pass through a void, a blackness waiting to be refilled; rendered in something more appealing? Do they see nothing? What do they see when they look at you? Their city is a dream world that hides hides your city, which is their nightmare.
You grimace.
You envy them.
You check the time.You’re late.
YOU: Exiting at 34th Street Hudson always disorients me. As the 7 decelerates into the last stop on the line a pressure becomes palpable. My fellow passengers and I switch back to street view. The train doors open. Having acclimated to the train, for a moment steady ground feels like water, and then i’m joining the flood of workers towards the exit. Despite its gleaming surfaces, lighting, sleek designs draping every surface and bulletins scrolling, the station never feels like a place to stay. To stop. Though of course, if you must make a way to stay, to build place, you find a way. I follow the the exiting crowd past a taller man. When our eyes meet for a moment, I know he does not have Eyes, He stops next to a pillar placing his many large tattered shopping bags on the ground, and attempting to reaffix a dangling button on his coat. Close by subway drones that had previously been statically hovering near a far wall began drifting into the crowd, the man quickly picks up his things and rejoins the stream. You must move through here, as quickly and efficiently as possible. The ceiling always seems too high. Everything echos here, The steps of the throng, whispers and yells, and underneath it all the constant symphony of bulletins and reports from separate City_net feeds., all become thunder in a cathedral as I head toward the escalator. I notice the steepness of it, I feel almost perpendicular to ground, beaming straight toward that same clamorous ceiling and the station opening that is sky and ground, and place again. Then I step off on ground level. Sky still sits above. Traffic buzzes down 34th street. The low gust from the Hudson breezes over the crowd of commuters as they fork into separate paths. One leads toward the edge of this world. The other to the heart of it.
I make a right.
THE CITY: < the system is attempting to refresh itself>
[no audio detected]
[no video detected]
…. position_40°45'17.5"N 74°00'03.2"W
<the system has refreshed itself>
YOU: Blackness, noise, and then Hudson Yards loads back into view, one layer at a time. Outlines of the reaching towers come first, then rusting walkways. Sunlight is followed by the return of tickers and widgets before more fine tuned details like the textures of buildings. City_net dialog windows appear, the Complex would like to know if I am alright or need assistance. What just happened? A system restart. I turn to see if there are any others restarting motion while lifting my now crouching body of the pavement. Was I the only one? My fellow commuters are gone. I am alone. How long have I been here? I check my clock. It’s only been a couple of minutes. I can still make it. I silence the dialog windows
Things like this happen I tell myself while resolving to make a quality assurance checkup as soon as I get to my station. I work as one of many faceless, nameless digital servicing assistants at the Hudson Yards Complex. The job doesn’t require much. In the early days, as more and more of the city’s services could be handled by City_net, a worry began to take shape. What would the humans do if the city could “care” for itself? And so positions like mine began to appear. Ostensibly watchers, a pair of human eyes to oversee automated operations. Providing assistance if the system should experience lags or failure. Glorified checks and balances. Mostly, I’m ignored at the stall that is my office. Critical management takes place in the city control room. At best i’m a helpdesk. On a good day I need only watch the monitor screens and answer tourist questions. I’m lucky to have the job, it beats unemployment, for how long i’m never sure and too weary to dwell on. But my direct access to maintenance issues, comes in handy now. I’m scanning for possible issues with my Eyes before i’ve even closed the door of my stall. It’s begun to drizzle.
Is it a malfunction? Only with my hardware? Or a software issue? Hacking? Has someone been watching, playing with me and enjoying my confusion from afar. Perhaps even looking at the strange visual defects through my own Eyes. Such things are also possible. I’m lost in thought, rolling these questions over in my head when I notice the world has begun to flicker. I have just enough seconds to realize the glitch is coming again before it hi…
(glitch)
Hudson Yards is a void,
I’m standing here
And nowhere
Then it returns but only as vague geometries, large patches of shadow vaguely building shaped, The only light, like sun rays, bursts from the symbols and insignias of the various companies, developers, fashion houses, tech giants living here.
I’m small and bodiless, I am only my Eyes. Only what I can see, staring ahead transfixed by the now shifting neon giants ahead of me
(glitch)
I’m standing on a rail line, no the High Line at the height of it’s construction, crowds of bygone tourists ripple past in slow motion, fast forward, slow motion again. The image freezes then shatters like glass(glitch)
White noise Static The buzzing starts as a low hum and then all encompassing it’s everywhere. Everything is the static(glitch)
I’ve returned, vegetation springs from every corner, wrapping itself around the walkways, the rails, my feet. The city below is still, empty, impossible(glitch)
Streams of color burst through the image and vanish, like bolts of lightning(glitch)
Voices, so many voices, and volumes The static continues like a hidden chorus, indifferent to the invisible conversations(glitch)
<the system is attempting to refresh itself>
Images contort, and bend I see multiple perspectives at the same time. They cut into one another so I am above and within and below all at once. Sky is ground and… “Everything that was directly lived has moved away into representation.”<the system is attempting to refresh itself>
“The air is hot and heavy with the fumes and laughter of traffic speeding below. ”(glitch)
And then it is night, an opera performance is taking place, the theater shed looms behind me. I am standing on the stage. The crowd of faceless onlookers, seem disgusted by my presence, shocked, bemused and ultimately chooses to ignore me. The operetta crescendos(glitch)
Ingredients for a techno-democratic civic progress One hundred twenty five thousand people One million square feet of retail & mixed used space Eighteen million square feet of commercial & residential space One hundred shops Fourteen acres Three parks Four thousand residences Twenty three thousand construction jobs(glitch)
And data. Data flowing like water Like oil Like blood Like life All of life, rigorously systematically, completely, quantified, measured, stored, and recycled.(glitch)
Bytes of information numbering in quintillions. 1 x 10^8 power. 1 . 000. 000. 000. 000. 000. 000 bytes of information. When you wake, wash, dress, breathe, move, sit, scream, fear, cry, run, speak, Love, die. And every second in between. Compounded by every person, one hundred twenty five thousand people Perhaps more Probably more The utopia is a machine for capital(glitch)
There is a park A field Standing there 40 degrees 44 feet 47 inches north 73 degrees 50 feet 41 inches west Turning Still Rusting Watching The future once lived here But the future is a nomad It moved And maybe it is where you are now And maybe you will find it And maybe you will never see it And maybe you already live there But the future is not a still thing A static thing It changes And is changed it moves And is moved, it’s bought, it’s sold, it’s many, it’s none And maybe you saw it And maybe you grasped it But by the time you felt it It was already gone. …….WATCHER: You blink and the world returns, slightly. What you see is only composed of shifting vector lines and shapes, shadows of people that fade in and out of definition as they move past you. Ahead of you the complex of platforms and towers seems doubled and ghostly, Like the image has been unscrambled incorrectly. When did you come outside? At least you think you are outside the shack. Why are you on the ground again? You aren’t sure, you can’t tell anyway. You turn your head (at least you think you are turning your head) to look at your hands, and at yourself. Your stomach drops. You aren’t there Instead you find a stream of numbers and text, scrolling into and out of existence on you body (at least what you think is your body) Some of the data is recognizable, words jump at your consciousness; Queens, worker, spectacle, an address, a location. But most of the information isn’t legible to you. When you look up, your vision has begun to spasm. Even the stream of characters, that pours from where you once were seems unstable It as if you may flicker out of existence at the slightest breeze. The shadow people, continue passing. You feel them inches away from you one moment Steps beyond you the next Sometimes you think one may be looking at you. The voice of City_net attempting to reassure you comes in as a garbled whisper, it’s calm is uncanny; true and synthetic.
THE CITY: <the system is attempting to refresh itself> <Please remain calm, City_net is attempting to re-establish...> <the system is attempting to refresh itself>
WATCHER: You feel unseen, you feel bypassed, you cannot change or impede this force Any world of agency seems like a dream now.
THE CITY: <the system is attempting to refresh itself>
YOU: My vision fades as I watch my data scroll off my flesh and disappear into the ether, I remember that I know this feeling of being unknown, lost in self, in image, in memory. Attempting to excavate a self, a ground to stand on while assaulted by reality.
But that feels so far away.
I don’t think it’s important now.
THE CITY: <the system is attempting to refresh itself>
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