Glitch Poetics : Critical Sensory Realisms in Contemporary Language Practice

Jones, Nathan (2018) Glitch Poetics : Critical Sensory Realisms in Contemporary Language Practice. UNSPECIFIED.

Abstract

A practice-based research project that introduces the term "Glitch Poetics" as a mode for reading and writing in the digital age: this term overlaps different creative (and uncreative) writing methodologies, and forges new lines of connection between "new media" and the literary and textual. The work is relevant to fields such as Literary Theory, Experimental Writing, Electronic Literature and New Media Art. The research methodology was interdisciplinary, including: synthesising key conceptualisations of "glitch" from media theoretical areas such as media archaeology and software studies, and new media art practitioners such as Rosa Menkman, with those of historical approaches to 'poetics'; performing close readings of contemporary literature, performance and other artistic language practices; and producing art works that move between live performance, exposition and textual practice. Over the course of 4 years, the project achieved a significant level of depth, concluding that "glitches" offer a moment of correspondence between the (already diverse) concerns of poetics and those of critical media practices, forming new disciplinary allegiances and necessitating new hybrid forms of critique. In recent published material I have also illustrated how this critical framework can be deployed to analyse influential books and artworks alongside emerging technologies. The new term "Glitch Poetics" gained traction through a publications in national specialist media, such as Art Monthly, Resonance FM and Poetry Wales, and was developed through interdisciplinary contexts including invited talks at Transmediale festival, Onassis centre in Athens, academic appearances at conferences for new media, literature and poetics, and as a chapter in the Bloomsbury Handbook of Electronic Literature. The practice-based components were commissioned by the Bluecoat and FACT, and a final outcome was developed into a publication with Entr'acte records in Antwerp, streamed in its entirety on The Wire website.