Research Statement

Introduction

Disintegration Bodies is an essay presenting the idea of the ‘digital abject’ – a triangulation between body, matter, and the other in the digital realm. The essay proposes that destructive digital effects such as glitching and data moshing create a ‘digital abject,’ a specific state of digital materiality. 

I approach digital materiality from a phenomenological standpoint, as a sensuous manifestation of the digital, and turn in this video essay to digital image manipulation techniques such as glitching, datamoshing and morphing. By upsetting the image with error and noise, these digital effects turn digital matter into a visible and tangible layer, normally hidden behind the semantics of the image. I affiliate digital materiality, and more specifically these digital procedures, with terms such as “plasticity,”(5) the “vitality of the medium,”(7) and “haptic visuality.”(8) Plasticity, a concept developed by Catherine Malabou, denotes both the capacity to take form and give form, and an articulation of matter through the destruction of form. Glitching, datamoshing and morphing, when applied at the level of the pixel, codec and resolution, are destructive techniques that unsettle the meaning of the image by emphasizing its plasticity. I connect this enhanced plasticity to what Joanna Zylinska and Sarah Kember call the vitality of the medium: a capacity for liveness within the mediation process, conditioned in this specific case by destructive digital effects. The plasticity and vitality of digital materiality lead to a haptic visuality, as termed by Laura Marks. Haptic visuality refers to a mode of tactile perception of the image, triggering a multisensory response in the viewer.

Digital abject relates to the notion of ‘abject’ developed by French philosopher Julia Kristeva. Abjection is the reaction to a state when the difference between the self and the other vanishes and meaning collapses. Digital abject emerges at the intersection of destructive digital effects and representations of human bodies. In such cases, bodies are disordered, fragmented, digitally disfigured, and transformed into abstract and affective matter. The body, normally tied to specific categories such as race and gender, both controlled and controlling, instead becomes an empty shell, a surface, abstract digital matter. Digital abjection creates possibilities to re-examine and re-compose bodies within the digital image, and with it to re-contextualize the intricate and complex relationship between (the materiality of) bodies, identities, and their representation in media.

The essay consists of two elements. The audio-visual part remixes music videos from Grace Jones, FKA twigs and Arca overlayed with a poetic cut-up from key texts from Julia Kristeva, Legacy Russell and others. The textual part of the essay uses parataxis and expands further the ideas of the cut-up layer of the audio-visual part.

Disintegration Bodies

Where does the self end, and where does the other begin?

What is the body in this relationality?

Is body delineated by matter?

Is the self delineated by the body?

“I” is not restricted to the body.

It is not the totality of the experience.

It is the feeling of being the internal subject of the experience. Being the center.

From this center, the body is felt as the delineation between inside and outside.

Self and other.

My body, your body.

WHAT IS A BODY?

REPRESENTATION

(SET OF RULES)

Body is the image of the self.

Body is the image of the other.

The image of the body represents a set of rules.

The body performs these sets of rules.

WHAT IS A BODY?

MATTER

(SENSUAL PERCEPT)

Other than image, the body is matter.

It enacts form, and movement.

Space and time.

It is sensuous (available for all senses).

.

Body is an object of desire.

The object–organised, formed, and tamed by a set of rules.

.

Body and digital matter intersect.

Body and digital matter – the idea of binary has been connected to both.

.

.

.

How is the body, including the observing body, becoming a component of new machines, economies, apparatuses, whether social, libidinal, or technological? (3)

WHAT IS DIGITAL MATTER?

PIXEL

CODEC

RESOLUTION

(SET OF RULES)

Is digital binary information?

Is digital immaterial?

Is digital matter senseable?

Is digital matter sensible?

Thus, the digital is embedded in material phenomena.

A sensuous manifestation of the digital.

Noise, errors, signal distortion and entropy result from material phenomena such as failures in circuit components or signal interference on transmission lines.(2)

+

A resolution is the lens through which constituted materialities become signifiers in their own right.(9)

.

.

.

Body conceptualises the self and the other in relation to matter.

What happens if that matter is digital?

Ontologically binary, but phenomenologically plastic and malleable?

DIGITAL ABJECT

IS THE JETTISONED (DIGITAL OBJECT);

IS RADICALLY EXCLUDED REPRESENTATION;

IS THE PLACE WHERE MEANING COLLAPSES. (6)

I expel myself, I spit myself out, I abject myself within the same motion through which "I" claim to establish myself.(6)

Abject organises the other in relation to the self.

WHAT IS A DIGITAL ABJECT?

ERROR

NOISE

ACCIDENT

MALFUNCTION

Upsetting the image with error and noise.

Unsettling the image of the body.

Noise, errors, signal distortion and entropy result from material phenomena such as failures in circuit components or signal interference on transmission lines.(2)

Digital abject emerges at the intersection of destructive digital effects and representations of human bodies.

In the state of digital abject, the body becomes digital matter.

In such cases, bodies are disordered, fragmented, digitally disfigured, and transformed into abstract and affective matter.

ERASING REPRESENTATION

DISASSEMBLING CONTROL

UNDOING MEDIATION (4)

Digital abject creates possibilities to re-examine and

 re-compose bodies within the digital image.

 re-contextualize the intricate and complex relationship

between (the materiality of) bodies, identities, and their representation in media.

Digital abject dismantles stable representations

  and collapses classical modes of vision.

Digital abject creates an affect, a liminal space

where body can be reshaped as a haptic echo of the digital matter.

WE USE BODY TO GIVE FORM TO SOMETHING

THAT HAS NO FORM,

THAT IS ABSTRACT, COSMIC.

Data is not solid: it can flow from one context or environment to the next,

changing both its resolution and its meaning.(9)

Being is none other than changing forms; being is nothing but its own mutability.(6)

Digital abject kindles plasticity – the capacity to take form and give form

Plasticity is an articulation of matter through the destruction of form. (8)

SKIN IS A CONTAINER.

IT IS A PEEL

THAT CONTAINS AND CRADLES

WILDNESS.

By upsetting the image with error and noise, destructive digital effects turn digital matter into a visible and tangible layer, normally hidden behind the semantics of the image.

THE ANTI-BODY RESISTS THE BODY

AS A COERCIVE SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ARCHITECTURE. (10)

Glitch is anti-body.

Anti-body critiques the body as a set of rules.

Ruptures the body, glitches the screen.

A BREAK, TEAR, RUPTURE

OR CUT IN SKIN OPENS A PORTAL AND PASSAGEWAY.

Digital abject enlivens digital matter.

Destructive digital effects condition the vitality of the medium – a capacity for liveness through destruction. (5)

AS WE FAIL,

WE MORPH.

AS WE MORPH,

WE TRANSCEND CAPTIVITY,

SLIPPERY TO THE FORCES THAT STRIVE

TO RESTRICT,

RESTRAIN,

AND CENSOR US.

What is utopia?

The utopian site of the body?

How can digital matter capture the utopian sight of the body?

How does digital abject transcend the screen framing the body?

What is beyond the binary of the digital?

Simulated glitches make visible their ambivalent relationships

to patriarchal, heterocentric video culture as they interrupt the gaze without alienating

the spectator.(1)

WE’VE BEEN PRESENTED WITH A SHARP VISION OF DECAY.

A NONPERFORMANCE THAT VEERS US

TOWARD A WILD UNKNOWN.

THIS IS WHERE WE BLOOM.

IT IS TIME FOR NEW MECHANICS.

LET’S MUTATE PLEASE.

BYE, BINARY!

BUFFER FOREVER (11)

References

Benson-Allott, Caetlin (2103) “Going Gaga for Glitch: Digital Failure @nd Feminist Spectacle in Twenty-F1rst Century Music Video.” In The Oxford Handbook of Sound and Image in Digital Media, by Caetlin Benson-Allott, 126–39. edited by Carol Vernallis, Amy Herzog, and John Richardson. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199757640.013.003. 

Casemajor, Nathalie (2015) “Digital Materialisms: Frameworks for Digital Media Studies.” Westminster Papers in Culture and Communication 10 (1): 4–17. https://doi.org/10.16997/wpcc.209. 

Crary, Jonathan (1992) Techniques of the observer: On vision and modernity in the nineteenth century. MIT Press.

ivyrobertsis (2014) “Glitch Art.” Ivy Roberts [blog], October 8. https://ivyroseroberts.wordpress.com/2014/10/08/glitch-art/.  

Kember, Sarah, and Joanna Zylinska (2014) Life after New Media: Mediation as a Vital Process. Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England: The MIT Press. 

Kristeva, Julia (1982) Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. Translated by Leon Roudiez. Reprint edition. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. 

Malabou, Catherine (2007) The End of Writing? Grammatology and Plasticity. The European Legacy: Toward New Paradigms 12: 431–41. 

Marks, Laura (2002) Touch: Sensuous Theory and Multisensory Media. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Menkman, Rosa (2020) Beyond Resolution. i.R.D.

Pow, Whitney Whit (2021) “A Trans Historiography of Glitches and Errors.” Feminist Media Histories 1 January, 7(1): 197–230. https://doi.org/10.1525/fmh.2021.7.1.197. 

Russell, Legacy (2020) Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto. London ; New York: Verso, 2020.

Peer Reviews

All reviews refer to original research statements which have been edited in response to what follows:

Review 1: Accept submission subject to minor revisions of written statement.

Critically investigating questions of abjection and digital matter, this video essay uses destructive digital effects such as glitching, data moshing, and morphing to turn images into visible, tangible “matter.” In this un-settled state, it becomes possible to re-think and re-feel the “intricate and complex relationship between digital matter, bodies, identities, and their representation in media,” it is argued in the accompanying statement. As such, the very mediality of the cut-up montage becomes an aid in the thinking done in and by the work. This is a very compelling argument, and the work to a large extent succeeds in accomplishing it. 

It is an extremely interesting and dense piece, and so is the written statement. Drawing on (and playing with) multipl`e sources within digital materiality, feminist theory, and media studies, the statement seems a little too compact at this moment. In one paragraph, a complex (and in some cases controversial) conception or idea is touched briefly, and in another, the complexity of a whole book chapter is explored. An example is the sentence, “by upsetting the image with error and noise, these digital effects turn digital matter into a visible and tangible layer, normally hidden behind the semantics of the image.” This is a fascinating idea: an image, in this understanding, seems to refer to something material (as opposed to, e.g., the distinction made by W.J.T. Mitchell in his picture-image dichotomy). In addition, this materiality is hidden beneath a semantic layer, meaning (I suppose) that the image has a certain logic or language to it which is hiding from the beholder. It would be interesting, if the artist could elaborate on statements like these, especially when they are directly related to the overall argument. 

Another aspect that I would suggest elaborating on, is the implicit “oppositions” of the work. A couple of times, the work as well as the essay imply the presence of antagonists, like the author(s) behind a “falsely claimed immateriality that has been perpetuated by the language used around the Internet” (no reference added) or “the binary” in the end of the video, that require us to develop new mechanics. I think I understand what the artist is aiming at, though I still believe that it would benefit the argument, if it was explained a little more precisely what or who they are opposing with this piece.

Review 2: Accept submission subject to minor revisions of written statement.

The work is organized around the following central terms: abject, digital matter, bodies. The function of these terms are different, as abject organizes the others into an examination of this affective response and how it relates to matter, bodies in digital media forms. 

The statement situates the work in theoretical context of new materialism, media studies and feminism. Beyond the wordplay of object into abject, it offers an intriguing perspective on the relation between post-cinematic visual effects of morphing imagery and gender identity. 

There are great reflections on error,  failure, noise, datamoshing, morphing and how these processes relate to materiality and phenomenology. Firstly, these are techniques that draw attention towards, as the research statement says, the digital matter, a “layer, normally hidden behind the semantics of the image”.  Secondly, these are considered as generating sensations of haptic visuality, triggering “a multisensory response in the viewer”. 

The concept of digital abject is discussed in relation to race and gender. Digital abjection creates possibilities to re-examine and re-compose bodies within the digital image, and with it to recontextualize the intricate and complex relationship between (the materiality of) bodies, identities, and their representation in media.

The research statement presents with clarity the theoretical context of the work. With regards to the potential of digital transformations and bodily representation there seems to be a utopian potential that is not part of the writing but seems a central component of the video. 

The statement points to the video remixing visual work from three artists and development of generative AI with the artist’s own visual experimentation. What triggers the selection of artists to engage with, and what does remix entail and signify in this context? The video is characterized by a didactic or explanatory mode of the video, with direct statements across the screen. What triggers this mode of operation?

The statement is overall well-written. With regards to structure, it would be recommended to clarify central terms and their relation earlier on. This is especially the term abject, that seems such a central term that it organizes the research question, yet is at this point in the text entirely unclear for the reader.  

All reviews refer to original research statements which have been edited in response.