subgenres – if not so aggressive.

The continuous use of clicks and compression

artefacts explicitly demonstrates the sampling form. The way in which samples are
cropped or looped is explicitly digital in these genres. It is a sonic image of a file.
In this environment, the digital artefacts, which are normally masked, have become
the decisive distinguishing feature. According to Cascone therefore, “post-digital”
means the use of techniques and stylistic devices that almost exclusively use faulty
artefacts found in digital techniques. Contrasting with music (and art in general)
produced only by digital means, the digital tools used here do not disappear within
a black box. Nor are they easy to hear, as is often the case with the introduction
of new techniques, because of their (new) sound characteristics. Rather, it deals
with the disclosure of the methods, storage formats and processes of digital sound
processing. It is also a shift in perspective from the foreground of a work (motive,
melody) to the background. Comparable to minimalism in the visual arts, a shift
in perspective takes place on the material (files) or the tools (DSP processes)
themselves. In this case, the fixation on the error created a new sound language,
which was genuinely digital and also a tool that could provide information about
the new digital media. The prominent musical use of the error can thus be seen as
being a tool with which to provide information about the technology and medium
used. 65 The abortion of (digital) functionality can be used to remove a veil of techno-
logy, to deal expressively with the inherent structures and processes. 66 67
In principle, Kim Cascone is describing the tip of an iceberg, which was not yet
wholly apparent at the turn of the millennium. The glitch aesthetic of the 1990s was
capable of deconstructing and reflecting a digital medium and developing a new
digital-centric language from it. Referencing the development of the new media
(as described in Chapter 2.1.2), this was a process carried out on a separately
perceived storage medium. It was, therefore, initially the use of a self-contained
medium, whose characteristics were being mapped out. The highlighting of the
digital working tools, and the elevation of these processes to an aesthetic of
their own, have, in turn, a generalizable validity. This focus of looking/hearing
can certainly be read as directing the attention within a society to an activity
taking place mostly in the background. The digital storage and processing that
actually takes place in the background are thereby brought into focus and exhibited.
These are not yet metaphorical processes, nor are they primarily critical positions.
Although the fixation on the digital is already a step towards the recognition of the
digital influence, this takes place in a rather abstract, minimalist context. Cascone

65 “Resonating with Martin Heidegger’s (1977) notion that the essence of technology is revealed in its breakdown,
the glitch reveals aspects of the technology, it draws attention to its structure, its opaque quality, the fact that it is
designed and has materiality.”
Cascone, Kim: ‘The Aesthetics of Failure: "Post-Digital" Tendencies in Contemporary Computer Music’,
in: Computer Music Journal 24/4, 2000, pp.12f.
66 “The post-digital seeks to lift the veil of the technical, to find ways of being expressive using inherent structures,
processes and other affordances.”
ebd.
67 Jenkins, Henry: ‘Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media education for the 21st century’,
in: Cambridge Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2009,pp.9ff.

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himself says that no art can be freed from its relationship to its environment. This
is certainly true, but the emphasis can still be stated.
Twenty years after the publication of Cascone's text, it seems reasonable to
rethink the function, implication and connotation of the (digital) error and to examine
it for new potentials in light of the changed conditions.
The malfunctioning of a system can open our eyes to the mechanisms behind
technology or refine our view of its use in society. The following questions take
centre stage:

1. What impact/role can an error play in a digital society?

2. How can the fault be used to artistically depict and thematize changes
in digitalization?

Regarding point 1: errors are not only an artistic tool but occur naturally, especially
in complex systems. Justin Hodgson uses the example of two computer system
failures to describe how digital errors can lead us to rediscover otherwise invisible
or unnoticed structures and reflect on their effects:

For example, on July 8, 2015, a technical glitch grounded, for the entire day, all
United Airlines flights in the US. That same day, the New York Stock Exchange and
the Wall Street Journal websites went down as well—also glitch-related. In addition
to demonstrating how digital disasters have the potential to operate with the
magnitude of a natural disaster, these events also revealed the scary reality that
many major corporate glitches and computational mishaps are, as informatics
scholar Zeynep Tufekci explained in “Why the Great Glitch of July 8th Should
Scare You”.68

These are two extreme examples, addressing the fragility of the digital system.
A susceptibility to error goes hand-in-hand with the weaknesses of capitalist
globalization. The small errors that we encounter in everyday life are, perhaps, even
more exciting. Justin Hodgson uses a faulty ATM to describe how its defect lets us
peek behind the seemingly perfect façade of a banking company:

Anyone who has seen a famous “Blue Screen of Death”—the iconic signal of a
Microsoft Windows crash—on a public screen or terminal knows how errors can
thrust the technical details of previously invisible systems into view. Nobody
knows that their ATM runs Windows until the system crashes. Of course, the
operating system chosen for a sign or bank machine has important implications for
its users. Windows, or an alternative operating system, creates affordances and
imposes limitations. Faced with a crashed ATM, a consumer might ask herself if,
with its history of rampant viruses and security holes, she should really trust an
ATM running Windows.69
68 Hodgson, Justin: Post-Digital Rhetoric and the New Aesthetic.
Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2019, p.6.
69 Hill, Benjamin Mako: ‘Revealing Errors’, in: Error: Glitch, Noise, and Jam in New Media Cultures, Mark Nunes,
New York: Continuum, 2011, p.27.

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 An error can therefore make a closed system – at least partially – understandable.
Through the termination, we learn something about the system behind it (in the
example above, the operating system). A look behind the facade of a digital
interface can tell us firstly, something about the medium itself, as described in
Chapter 2.1.2, and secondly, something about its basic properties, such as the
computational capability. At a more elevated level, it tells us something about
fragility, narration, appearance and control. A closed system can claim something,
represent something. It has a certain authority and power. These media/interfaces
always function as a black box in the digital world. The link in the programming is
not physically visible; it can be designed in any way and can, therefore, initially only
be experienced by the user based on its graphic design (GUI). If a system is not
visible, not understandable, not controllable, then it has a hierarchical component,
which Benjamin Hill summarizes as follows:

As technologies become more complex, they often become more mysterious to their
users. While not invisible, users know little about the way that complex technologies
work both because they become accustomed to them and because the technological
specifics are hidden inside companies, behind web interfaces, within compiled soft-
ware, and in “black boxes”. Errors can help reveal these technologies and expose
their nature and effects. As technology becomes complex, the purpose of technology
is to hide this complexity. As a result, the explicit creation of black boxes becomes
an important function of technological design processes and a source of power.
Once again, errors that break open these boxes can reveal hidden technology
and its power.70

The manifestation of this digital control can have many facets. The malfunctioning
of a digital system can reveal fragilities, power structures, manipulations, con-
ventions, labels and forms of representation. It is the surface that can be broken.
To recognize that this surface exists, and that (under certain circumstances) an
unreflected trust is placed in it, is then the supporting achievement. A disappearing
black box is made visible again and its structure is potentially recognizable.

As to point 2: in contrast to such randomly occurring mistakes, the mistake

is used in the artistic context as a productive tool, to additionally generate an
increased awareness. This is what constitutes the changed situation as compared
to the original use of the term. The possibilities and necessities of making digital
processes visible, experienceable and criticizable have increased since then.
Digitalization has developed from a marginal phenomenon within society to the
norm. Perhaps it is no longer necessary to explicitly focus on digital media; rather,
it must be shown that we are already looking at it, that our view is imprinted by it
and that it is hidden beneath the surface of everyday life. Further use of this style
and this tool can be derived from this. Even if the tools and elements of aesthetics
have remained the same, their function and use today is different.

70 Hill, Benjamin Mako: ‘Revealing Errors’, in: Error: Glitch, Noise, and Jam in New Media Cultures, Mark Nunes,
New York: Continuum, 2011, p.36.

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