Abstract

Rather than operating within singular, differentiable channels and formats, images and other media on the worldwide network propagate through streams of encoded data. Streams split, recombine, and compete within a multidimensional space of sensory modalities, production techniques, distribution channels, and target audiences. This is as true of commercial media, which seeks profit in unfilled niches, as it is of alternative or tactical media, which pursues the phantom of liberation through interstitial media zones. This paper examines some of the strategies artists employ to plant their work within networked media chaos, with particular attention to appropriation and glitch and how these practices can redefine the social activism of historical avant-garde tendencies in a post avant-garde culture.