Serendipity describes an unintended but pleasant development of events. For example, it was serendipitous that the HDMI cable provided while installing enable (2020)—a standalone generative artwork running from a tablet computer—produced several green scan lines at the opening exhibition of Meanjin/Brisbane art-space KEPK.

This glitch complemented my computer-generated imagery. The main feature of the artwork is two 3D desktop cursor pointer fingers that fumble into and flee one other. When the two figures are touching, the animation is amplified with several thick outlines. To produce the effect, I layered gameplay recordings in the scene while exploiting the Unity Game Engine’s anti-aliasing function.

Wide Open (2020)—the group show that enable was exhibited at—was held while COVID-19 guidelines for social distancing had first attempted to ease. The gameplay elements were developed during isolation. The force at which the two figures are drawn together is interpolated via data collected by a live audio stream of the chatter and foot-traffic of the community anxiously interacting.

Significant to my research was the cybernetic interplay between the environment, body, and machine. Glitch in this instance operates as both a method and a message. As a welcome disruption to the genealogy of social convention, a glitch presents opportunities for new interactions to gestate.