I tracked down old footage of my friends at a spot we used to frequent long ago. I wanted to evoke nostalgia and the disintegration of memory over time. Coming up with any visuals or sound at all was really difficult. There’s a pacifier wherever my imagination is supposed to be. I wish I had come up with some kind of climax and drop. I also wish I had been able to come up with a visual that syncs better with the arpeggios. I tried tweaking the numbers and couldn’t find the right rhythm to sync to. The entire thing is too chaotic and unbalanced to work as a composition. But at the end, I liked the silence paired with the normal videos, because it felt like reminiscence or reflection.
What struck me immediately even before fully reading was the visual experience of the PDF itself. The text isn’t clean or stable; it’s fragmented, stretched, interrupted by blocks of symbols and noise. It feels like the document is actively “glitching” as you read it. The manifesto sort of performs the glitch theory rather than just describing it. The layout forces me to slow down, to become aware of reading as a mediated process. It almost resists being consumed in a normal, linear way.
This made me realize that the glitch here is highly embodied in the medium. The scattered typography, the visual noise, and the interruptions act like breaks in a signal, constantly pulling me out of passive reading. In a way, I felt like I was navigating a system that was slightly broken but also strangely expressive. That tension between frustration and curiosity felt intentional.
In livecoding, the process is visible and unstable: errors, unexpected outputs, or crashes become part of the performance rather than something to hide. Similar to Menkman’s idea, the “glitch” is nothing like a failure but a moment where the system reveals itself. When code behaves unpredictably during a live set, it creates a kind of raw, real-time interaction between the artist, the machine and the audience.
I think both glitch aesthetics and livecoding challenge this idea that digital media should be smooth and optimized. Instead they expose the underlying structure: the code, the errors, the limits. They make the medium feel alive. I was browsing albert and ran into one class on named “Experiments in the Future of Producing/Performing” which, according to the description, encourages students to hack the music/visual software and conduct software abuse in order to challenge conventional recorded music/visual products. It says, “Sound (and other kinds of art) is an unstable art form.” Reading this manifesto made me more aware of how much I usually expect technology to “just work,” and how much potential there is when it doesn’t.
It also makes me question my own creative practice: am I just using tools as intended, or am I willing to push them to the point where they break and become something else?
What I found most interesting in the reading is not just the claim that glitches reveal hidden structures, but the way it almost romanticizes breakdown as something inherently meaningful. I get why that’s appealing, especially when most of our interactions with technology are designed to feel seamless and unquestionable. But I’m not fully convinced that every disruption actually produces insight. Sometimes a glitch just feels like noise in the most literal sense, frustrating and empty rather than revealing. I think the manifesto leans heavily into the idea that opacity is always more honest than transparency, but I wonder if that’s just flipping one bias for another. There’s still a kind of aesthetic preference being imposed, where breakdown is treated as more authentic than functionality, and I’m not sure that always holds up outside of an artistic context.
At the same time, I did find the idea of glitches losing their meaning once they are recognized or reproduced much more convincing, because it points to something broader about how culture works. The moment something becomes legible, it becomes easier to package, repeat, and eventually normalize. That tension between the accidental and the intentional felt like the strongest part of the text for me, especially because it doesn’t fully resolve it. If a glitch only matters in the moment before it is understood, then any attempt to study or recreate it is already too late. That makes glitch art feel almost self-defeating, but also strangely honest about its own limits. I also liked that the manifesto doesn’t treat technology as neutral, but I think it sometimes overstates how much agency we gain through disruption. Not every break in a system leads to awareness or critique. Still, it made me think more carefully about how much I rely on smoothness and predictability, and how rarely I question what gets hidden in the process of making things “just work.”
This project explores a journey through different emotional and cultural states, inspired by the progression of a day and the feeling of returning home. I structured the composition as four distinct sections: Subah (morning), Dhak (rhythm and movement), Toofaan (chaos), and Ghar (homecoming). Each section combines both audio and visuals to reflect a specific mood — from the softness of sunrise to the intensity of a storm, and finally to a calmer, resolved ending.
I spent a lot of time experimenting with how to connect TidalCycles and Hydra through MIDI so that the visuals would respond meaningfully to the music. The hardest part was getting everything to sync and behave consistently took multiple attempts and debugging sessions. I also iterated a lot on the visuals, trying to move away from repetitive patterns and instead create distinct visual identities for each section. The final result is something that feels cohesive but still varied, where both the audio and visuals evolve together as the piece progresses.
Tidal code
setcps (85/60/4)
silence_all = do
d1 silence
d2 silence
d3 silence
d4 silence
d5 silence
d6 silence
d7 silence
d8 silence
d9 silence
subah = do
-- scene select: 0 = SUBAH
d1 $ n "0*8" # s "midi" # midichan 0 # ccn 0 # ccv "0"
d2 $ n "0*16" # s "midi" # midichan 0 # ccn 1 # ccv (range 0 45 $ slow 12 sine)
d8 $ n "0*16" # s "midi" # midichan 0 # ccn 2 # ccv (range 10 50 $ slow 16 sine)
d3 $ slow 4 $ s "sitar" # n "<0 5 3 7>"
# room 0.95 # gain 0.75 # speed 0.8
# lpf 2200 # pan (slow 5 sine) # cut 1
d4 $ slow 4 $ s "supersaw"
# note "c4 e4"
# sustain 4 # gain 0.35 # lpf 600 # room 0.9 # lpq 0.12
d5 $ struct "t(3,16)" $ slow 2 $ s "tabla2"
# n (irand 46) # room 0.85 # gain 0.6
# speed (range 0.85 1.15 rand)
d6 silence
d7 silence
dhak = do
d1 $ n "1*8" # s "midi" # midichan 0 # ccn 0 # ccv "1"
d9 $ n "0*4" # s "midi" # midichan 0 # ccn 3 # ccv "<0 64 0 64>"
-- hydra motion
d2 $ n "0*16" # s "midi" # midichan 0 # ccn 1 # ccv (range 20 85 $ slow 4 saw)
d8 $ n "0*16" # s "midi" # midichan 0 # ccn 2 # ccv (range 20 90 $ slow 8 sine)
d3 $ stack [
s "tabla2*8"
# n "<[20 8 8 20 20 8 3 12] [20 8 3 20 20 3 8 12]>"
# room 0.5 # gain (range 0.95 1.1 rand),
s "tabla:0(3,8)" # room 0.4 # gain 1.05 # speed 0.8,
s "~ cp" # room 0.6 # gain 0.9
]
d4 $ sometimesBy 0.25 (# speed 2)
$ every 4 rev
$ s "pluck"
# note "<c5 e5 g5 e5 a5 g5 e5 d5>"
# room 0.55 # gain 0.85 # speed 1.5
d5 $ slow 2 $ s "supersaw"
# note "<c3 e3 c3 d3>"
# sustain 1.5 # gain 0.4 # lpf 550 # room 0.75
d6 $ struct "t(1,8)" $ s "sitar"
# n (irand 8) # room 0.65 # gain 0.7 # cut 1
d7 silence
toofaan = do
d1 $ n "2*8" # s "midi" # midichan 0 # ccn 0 # ccv "2"
d9 $ n "0*8" # s "midi" # midichan 0 # ccn 3 # ccv "<0 64 100 64 0 100 64 0>"
d2 $ n "0*16" # s "midi" # midichan 0 # ccn 1 # ccv (range 45 127 $ slow 2 saw)
d8 $ n "0*16" # s "midi" # midichan 0 # ccn 2 # ccv (range 30 127 $ slow 4 saw)
d3 $ s "[808bd:4(5,8), ~ 808:3, ~ cp ~ cp]"
# room 0.6 # krush 7
# speed (slow 4 "<1.5 1>") # gain 1.15
d4 $ rotL 1 $ every 4 (fast 2)
$ s "tabla2*8"
# n "<[20 6 6 20 8 6 3 12] [20 3 6 20 8 12 6 3]>"
# room 0.3 # gain 1.05
# speed (range 0.95 1.15 rand)
d5 $ fast 2 $ s "supersaw"
# note "<c5 e5 g5 a5 g5 e5 d5 c5>"
# sustain 0.12 # gain 0.5 # room 0.35
# lpf (slow 4 $ range 1000 7000 saw) # lpq 0.25
d6 $ slow 2 $ s "moog:2"
# note "<c4 d#4 e4 c4>"
# legato 1 # gain 0.6
# lpf (segment 1000 $ slow 4 $ range 200 2200 saw) # lpq 0.3
d7 $ fast 2 $ s "hh*2 hh*2 hh*2 <hh*6 [hh*2]!3>"
# room 0.4 # gain (range 0.9 1.1 rand)
ghar = do
d1 $ n "3*8" # s "midi" # midichan 0 # ccn 0 # ccv "3"
d9 $ n "0*4" # s "midi" # midichan 0 # ccn 3 # ccv "<0 64 0 64>"
d2 $ n "0*16"
# s "midi"
# midichan 0
# ccn 1
# ccv (range 28 4 $ slow 16 sine)
d8 $ n "0*16"
# s "midi"
# midichan 0
# ccn 2
# ccv (range 30 6 $ slow 16 sine)
d3 $ slow 2 $ s "sitar"
# n "<0 2 4 7 7 4 2 0>"
# gain 0.9
# room 0.95
# speed 0.82
# lpf 1800
# cut 1
d4 $ slow 4 $ s "pluck"
# n "<4 ~ 2 ~ 0 ~ -2 ~>"
# gain 0.38
# room 0.9
# sustain 0.4
# lpf 1500
d5 $ slow 4 $ s "supersaw"
# note "c4 e4"
# sustain 5
# gain 0.16
# room 0.98
# lpf 320
# lpq 0.15
d6 $ struct "t(2,16)" $ s "tabla2"
# n "<20 8>"
# gain 0.38
# room 0.8
# lpf 1400
d7 $ struct "t(1,16)" $ s "pluck"
# n "<7 4>"
# gain 0.14
# room 0.95
# sustain 0.25
# lpf 2200
subah
dhak
toofaan
ghar
hush
When I was working on my compositions with hydra and tidal, I found myself always leaning toward glitch sounds and the visual effects that matched them. Somehow, I found them to be clean and straightforward effects that everyone is familiar with. The reading was written in 2009-2010 by Rosa Menkman. I understand that at that time, people might have leaned toward “perfection” in technology by integrating sharper images, faster speeds, and invisible interfaces. However, since then, people have become more experimental with technology by playing around with glitches, noises, and colors. So, I believe that what she stated about bringing unfamiliarity and the unexpected through effects such as glitches is something we see very often today.
Menkman said that “The main subject of most glitch art is critical perception. Critical in this sense is twofold: either criticizing the way technology is conventionally perceived, or showing the medium in a critical state. Glitches release a critical potential that forces the viewer to actively reflect on the technology.” This made me realize that when I watch videos with glitches, they somehow make me concentrate more, as I start thinking about how and when the glitch is happening. I think this has a strong engagement effect on the audience. This solidifies that while watching glitch art, the audience perceives glitches without knowing how they came about, which gives them an opportunity to focus on their form to interpret their structures and learn more from what can actually be seen.
While reading, I also liked how the text was organized, with glitch effects added between sections and experiments with text indentation. This further reinforced what she is saying about breaking continuity and linearity. I also watched a video by the author where she experimented with glitch effects in many different ways. I realized that although I have used glitch effects before, I have never really explored them beyond simple techniques. This gave me new ideas on how I can use glitch effects in more creative ways.
Rosa Menkman’s Glitch Studies Manifesto is an interesting read but it can feel overwritten at times. That said one argument genuinely stuck with me and it was the idea that a glitch is not just a mistake but a moment that exposes what a technology actually is beneath its polished surface. When something breaks you suddenly see the system and its assumptions and limits. I think that framing makes a lot of sense.
Working in TidalCycles and Hydra I think about this a lot. When Im live coding and something goes wrong like a pattern fires off rhythm or a Hydra function produces something completely unexpected there is this brief moment of panic but also genuine curiosity. Like what just happened and why did it do that? Menkman would probably call that the acousmatic quality of glitch where you are confronted with an output you cannot fully trace back to a source. In my project I was deliberately layering tabla samples with glitchy electronic sounds and the tension between those two things felt like exactly what she was describing. I feel like the interruption becomes the point.
Where Im less convinced is her claim that intentional glitch art still counts as true glitch. I think once you are designing the error you have already domesticated it. There is a real difference between a glitch that surprises you and one that you planned. The shock is what makes it what it is.