ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the author's experience of teaching glitch art while a facilitator of TakeBreakMake, a media arts program for queer youth and their allies located in Columbia, South Carolina. This research uses the approach of narrative inquiry (Anderson, 2014; Ellis & Bochner, 2000; Gubrium & Holstein, 2009; Witherell & Noddings, 1991) to gain insight into the ways that teaching glitch art shaped the course of the program's curriculum and expanded beyond the classroom. This personal pedagogical reflection is framed in dialogue with additional reflections from a former student, Cas Skinner, who continued to practice glitch art many years after the program ended. Through these reflections, the author explores the possibilities of glitch art in the arts classroom and proposes ways in which it could be used to explore different social issues. Glitch art is a digital arts practice in which data is intentionally corrupted to create distortions in media objects, such as images or videos. The process of glitching enables artists to access the material elements of electronic media and understand mechanical failure as one of the more human-like qualities of machines. In TakeBreakMake, glitch art opened ways for students to explore collage and texture, memory and identity, and even grief and mourning. The aim of this chapter is to encourage art educators to experiment with teaching (and learning) glitch art alongside their own students and possibly glitch their own teaching practice along the way.
