The Final Product

Almost 50 glitches later. No, wait. I take that back. I ended up with almost 50 pictures, but many of them took more than one glitch session to complete. In fact, there were quite a few that didn't work, which meant I had to throw the work out and start again. Glitch art is a surprisingly delicate process. Regardless, after all of that, it came time to combine them into what might appear to be the ultimate selfie. (I could launch into a discussion about how selfies could be considered an art form of their own, but I will avoid that temptation.)

Why would I go to all the trouble of finding all of these important, historical factors just to combine them into a picture of myself? Because history is something we all find within ourselves. We are born of forefathers who were born of their forefathers and so on and so forth. We are part of one massive human ladder, connected and built up by those of the past. As I engaged each of the pieces, I was forced to engage each of the things they stood for. The ideas they held. Each of these pieces required an individual, sometimes more than one.

There is creativity in everything, if we're willing to look for it. And, through this project, I think I can say I found creativity in all facets of life.

My Favorites

One of the cool things that happened during the search for art was that I found many pieces I really enjoy. It makes sense to save the best for last, so here you go.

Claude Monet's The Japanese Bridge (The Bridge in Monet's Garden)

Marcel Duchamp's L.H.O.O.Q.

Edvard Munch's The Murderess

Pablo Picasso's Jeune Fille Endormie

More Art

The cool thing about glitch art is, in a way, it's a lot like history. In some ways, history is not relative, but in more ways than not, history is a very relative thing. Everybody sees things in a different perspective and because of this, no matter how hard we try we will never get a completely objective account of what happened in history. It's why our textbooks focus more on the accomplishments of men than of women. It's why our country celebrates a white-washed version of Columbus Day. Skew adds upon skew until some points of history are likely so distorted we wouldn't recognize them if we were actually there. Glitch art twists a pre-established piece much like perspective twists an event.

Edgar Degas' The Pink Dancers Before the Ballet

M.C. Escher's Relativity

Jackson Pollock's Convergence

Albretcht Durer's A Study in Hands

Francisco Goya's Blind Man's Bluff

Philosophy

Who influences the leaders? Philosophers. Philosophy drives everything: politics, written work, even science. As time has progressed, philosophies have changed, shifted and morphed. We, living in the time that we are, have the great privilege to mix and match these old ideas as we choose, even morph them into something new. Philosophy is a lens through which we can see the world, people who can articulate it are very creative.

Rene Descartes

John Locke

Karl Marx

Thomas Hobbes

Art

As the final product of this project is a visual mosaic, it makes sense that I focused in a lot more on finding art from the various time periods we studied. They say a picture is worth 1,000 words, which means even though things like the written work were just as influential, it's harder to condense. Besides, I'm unable to glitch art humans, and glitching a book would not only be very long, but rather pointless.

Pieter Bruegel's Massacre of the Innocent

Thomas Gainsborough's The Blue Boy

Georges Seurat's Sunday Afternoon

Sandro Botticelli's Birth of Venus

Edouard Manet's Luncheon on the Grass

Rembrandt's The Night Watch

Revolution!

Sometimes, changes occur slowly. However, people also have the power to invoke great change quickly, if they rally together and fight for a cause. Throughout history, revolutions have made huge turning points for entire nations, even the world. Revolutions, like all forms of change, takes creativity an a willingness to try new tactics and ideas.

The Declaration of Independence

Guillotines

Eugene Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People

Inventions

Although people have a huge influence on the flow of society, their inventions also have the ability to affect history in a way that the individual alone could not have. Take, for example, the atomic bomb. Although scientists created the weapon, it was not their choice to drop it on Japan. Sometimes, the consequences of innovation, whether good are bad, are very far reaching.

Hand looms

Telegraph

Factories