Glitch Feminism

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Glitch Feminism:

A Manifesto by Legacy Russell

Prior to diving in to explore this cosmic range of knowledge that Legacy Russell lays out for us in her Manifesto, Glitch Feminism, I have had my own pre-exposure to the topic and my original perceptions. I was excited to learn we would be researching and obtaining more depth on this topic, as it is something I have already tried to explore in a couple of my earlier pieces!

I created a glitch piece I titled Girls will be Girls with a creative content focus of women in power. In my glitch, high heels are one of the most common themes in the piece because of their significance to womanhood and power together. The repetition is very in your face because the pattern of gender bias is predictable at this point. Women are incredibly impressive but are less likely to receive a position or get an opportunity to prove themselves due to their gender. I like viewing the high heels as a way of raising women up to be on a more level playing field with men in a cartoon illustration explaining 'equity.' The piece remains boxy and geometric because in order to be given a chance, women often find themselves needing to fit into a box or mold of a ‘perfect’ girl. I find it garbage that boys can and will be boys, but women are held to high expectations and considered failures if they aren’t met. Luckily, girls will be girls gives the impression that they will work hard to overcome all obstacles to become their personal goal, even if it goes against the status quo.

I think that there are a few overlaps in Russell and I's ideas of #GlitchFeminism, which are bolded above, but I am appreciative of the expansion that the first few chapters of the manifesto have provided me. I think it is incredibly important to recognize this idea of ghosting and destroying the binary whether that be in glitching an actual binary code or these perceived 'errors' in binary biological foundations. I especially appreciate how inclusive and celebratory Russell is about every kind of individual and steering away from comparing them to each other, which is obviously something I had the habit of pursuing and exploring in my earlier pieces on feminism. I am hopeful to be able to explore more of my own abilities surrounding these limitless cosmos of fluidity. My own ideas have space to become more 'anti-body.'

The idea that Russell introduces about humans being like machine slaves is one that provides a lot of general perspective about the algorithms which we base our lives around. If things have been a certain way for so long, the code and numbers written to talk or predict about the topic are going to skewed to continue those original results. They are set up with bias programmed into them. Breaking away from these systemic norms becomes an insane challenge when it is not only one that pressures dialogues and thinking, but also uncontextualized and evolving data. Understanding context around things changes present perceptions, and that is never a bad thing, it only becomes confusing as it contradicts data which made sense to the perceptions at a previous time.

Glitching and approaching this idea of anti-body provides a deeper perspective into the concept that I have always been fond of which is most easily described as a meat suit. I agree that glitch is skin, and Russel's introduction to both keeping things in and keeping things out broadens my idea that she touches on where skin is a container. I personally have imagined that we don't look exactly as our bodies, or meat suits as I like to refer to them as, and instead our souls and characters are inside of the bodies and probably look a lot different than we are allowed to perceive within this realm.

I appreciate how these ideas can come into play with internet art and personas. Because of the freedom of the anonymity behind our screens, it becomes easier for a user to create a new or different skin than that they exist in AFK, which is the base of artists like Shawné Michaelain Holloway and Amalia Ulman. The black mirror can reflect any version of ourselves. Russel continues further explaining how when we become no-body or anti-body we are instead actually becoming every-body. To me this means that once we escape our binary ideologies, we can become not only more accepting but actually more understanding or more literally put into someone else's shoes.

we will embody the ecstatic and catastrophic error

Expanding on glitch as a remix or creating something new out of something which has already existed, an 'original,' and comparing that to our biological bodies in terms of color, size, shape, or identities opens the window to literally throw an 'original' out of it. I previously explored the idea that data can change after time and is built with bias, but this sparked the idea of ever changing roots in my mind. If the actual base of something was the original foundation of a now believed perception, there would be a lack of growth in the roots below the system as well. By embodying the ecstatic and catastrophic behavior of a glitch within our feminism, we are rejecting the norms that on the surface of the data which never grew but were developing within this incomprehensible root system of natural 'glitches.'

‘I Say Tear It All Down’: Curator Legacy Russell on How ‘Glitch Feminism’ Can Be a Tool to Radically Reimagine the World

artnet article by Ben Davis