I was excited to finally receive my copy of Glitch: Designing Imperfection last week and I've been savouring the compendium for the past several days. For those unfamiliar with the project, the book was spearheaded by Iman Moradi and Ant Scott to provide a fixed archive for the ephemeral glitch art scene. Transitioning screen-based media art to print is always a tricky endeavour but the pair of curators (aided by Joe Gilmore and Christopher Murphy) have constructed an impressive document that collates error-related work from approximately eight dozen artists. Glitch is extremely thorough and provides a precise overview of a hyper-specific strand of media art.

The captions for the majority of the work in Glitch reveal a mix of software and video-based practices and the text is constructed as an index of screen captures that allude to motion graphics, hacked video hardware and software art. Iman Moradi describes how glitch artists' methodologies demand a code and platform-level awareness of specific technologies and techniques:

...which stems from an understanding of their tools: computer hardware (storage media, memory and display technology) and software (operating systems, image processing libraries, file storage and data transmission protocols). Fundamentally though, everything boils down to principles of composition, color and personal taste, which are immutably non-specific and timeless. Aesthetic considerations therefore govern the way glitch artists crop, compose and even provoke the generation of images.

This said, we can read glitch art as "rationalized" surprises generated in that moment that Scott describes as "when software doesn't do what you expect it to". Glitch provides a sprawling inventory of graphic artifacts born through software sketches, application crashes, broken interfaces, hacked cartridges, adventurous signal processing and convoluted HTML. Contributing artists include: Cory Arcangel, David Lu, JODI, Karl Klomp, Mario Klingemann, Marius Watz, Paul Prudence (and scores more) and interviews with Angela Lorenz, Ant Scott, Kim Cascone, O.K. Parking and Johnny Rogers.

The above spread, featuring work by Lia + Miguel Carvalhais (left) and reMI (right), reflects the general layout strategy of Glitch - a liberal use of white space and images ranging in size from full-bleed spreads down to thumbnails. Due to the general consistency of the imagery, the spread-by-spread variation in layout makes the book a pleasure to browse through and explore.

In addition to a smart layout strategy, the text also boasts a numerical system for indexing the contributors and image chronology. In and of itself this is a clever means of organizing work, but the protocol also alludes to the austere file naming conventions often associated with glitch and generative art. Designers Qubik and Fehler should definitely take a bow for their rigorous arrangement of this vast body of work.

Glitch: Designing Imperfection is so well crafted that a reader might not clue into the specificity of practices and techniques that generated this work. Delivered in the form of an impeccable coffee table book, the project almost seems to domesticate the glitch—perhaps the timing is correct as we are now living in a post-Kanye West era of digital art. While the text would have benefitted from some artist-written essays delving into approach and aesthetics—or touched on related installation work—any speculation on where this book might have "erred" is superfluous as the project is fabulously successful at documenting a decade of relatively esoteric multimedia experimentation.

Glitch: Designing Imperfection was produced by Mark Batty Publisher and released in September, I'd go as far as labelling the text as essential for anyone interested in software art and experimental video.

In the interest of disclosure, I'm far from an unbiased reviewer of this text. Ant Scott was an early contributor to Vague Terrain and Iman Moradi and I have corresponded for several years. Regardless of these ties, I think my response to the project is objective.