Obsession and Digital
Working with digital art adds new qualities to obsession.
The technology itself enhances and shapes obsession differently than analog media.
Here are several features:
Infinite cycle
Digital by nature is recursive: code, render, loop, restart.
Obsession in digital gets a "natural environment" โ because here everything is built on repetition.
The cycle is not secondary, it's built into the very logic of digital.
Glitch as material of obsession
In analog, glitch is rather accidental,
in digital โ regular.
The system always carries risk of crash, error, delay.
For the artist, obsession easily transforms into fixation on glitch as source of new forms.
Archive and anti-memory
Digital art is always connected to memory โ files, logs, backups.
But it also constantly loses:
- broken links,
- outdated formats,
- disappeared servers.
Obsession in digital โ is hanging on traces of the disappeared:
phantoms of deleted files, ghosts of archive.
Interface as gaze loop
Digital always works through interfaces.
And interface is essentially โ a mirror-trap:
you look at the object, but interact with the surface.
Obsession here transforms into getting stuck on the boundary between you and the object,
in constant touching that doesn't allow going further.
Speed โ delay
Digital promises instantaneity,
but actually always works with lags, delays, buffering.
This is perfect soil for obsession:
the artist "sticks" to the very delay,
to what doesn't load, what hangs.
Algorithm obsession
There's another layer: digital systems themselves are obsessive.
Algorithm repeats, filters, ranks, imposes recommendation loops.
The artist, working with digital, faces not only their own obsession,
but also the machine's obsession.
Sometimes they coincide, sometimes they begin to fight.
Result
In digital art, obsession coincides with the very logic of the system:
cycle, repetition, getting stuck โ become method and material.
And in this "excessive" repetition, another sensitivity is born.