Delirium of Digital Machines: Glitch Art in the Post-Digital Era

In the context of digital capitalism, digital production, as a form. of immaterial automated production, can be executed agilely and unobtrusively. Almost all forms of production are overshadowed by this digital aura. “Post-digital aesthetics” emerges from a series of artistic practices that interrogate the overwhelming perfection of digital symbols, and this series of artistic production practices includes glitch art. The term “post-digital” does not refer to “anti-digital”, nor does it imply disillusionment following the excessive proliferation of digital technologies. Rather, the post-digital era represents a time in which human being and digital apparatus are integrated in various ways and to varying extents. This paper attempts to reinterpret the definition of the “post-human” as a complex of machines and devices by examining the intrinsic connections between industrial capitalism and digital capitalism, and drawing an analogy with philosophical and critical reflection on photography. It argues that the process of “post-humanization” can be traced back to the early development of industrial assembly lines and the invention of photographic technologies. Furthermore, digital production is characterized as a process of “negative entropy, ” while disruptions and glitches conform. to the “increase-in-entropy”, constituting an inherent potential in digital systems. These disruptions resemble sudden symptoms, inducing a state of delirium in digital machines. Therefore, the beauty of glitch art can be interpreted as a kind of “delirious” beauty, encompassing the elements of rebellion and critique. Glitch art, as a complex form. of artistic expression, should harness the potential of digital technologies, embedding the creator􀆳s intellectual concepts into the iterative processes of the digital systems, searching for the eternal within interruptions, and generating brilliance from errors.