Glitching the Machine Eye

Glitching the Machine Eye

A workshop on resistance, visibility, and the politics of digital capture

This workshop sets out a methodology for sharing practice-based research techniques that resist the colonial, totalising, and commercial legacies of technology—particularly those embedded in visual capture tools such as 3D scanning and photogrammetry.

Bringing together artists, researchers, technologists, and critical makers, the session explores glitching, hacktivism, and collaborative experimentation as tactics for exposing the political and material dimensions of computational vision—ranging from LiDAR and AI to photogrammetry and computational photography.

We will begin with the methods behind Dr. Tom Milnes’s ongoing project Ephemer(e)ality Capture, inviting participants to contribute ephemeral, reflective, and transparent objects to a collectively constructed Vanitas-style still life. This collaborative scene will then be subjected to multiple modes of 3D scanning, revealing the distortions, omissions, and failures inherent in machine vision.

From these glitched captures, participants will work together to develop experimental outcomes—sharing technical knowledge, creative strategies, and counter-methodologies for resisting the extractive and normative tendencies of contemporary image systems.

This workshop is as much about technical skill-sharing as it is about imaginative resistance: an open space for collective inquiry, digital subversion, and aesthetic play.

This workshop is part of Tom Milnes's testspace exhibition SCANITAS:lab at KARST which opens on Friday 5th September at 6pm. The exhibition runs from 5-13 September 2025.

Suitable participants:

The workshop is aimed at those interested in finding out more about methods of resistance to digital image production and machine vision technologies. Ideally participants will have some knowledge of 3D technologies and will want to share these skills/ideas with the group - however please message if you are unsure. During the workshsop there will be hands-on practical demonstrations, discussion of critical media texts, and the development of toolkits and methodologies to further enhance our agencies as creatives/humans amongst technological impositions.

Participants should bring:

• One object that is transparent, reflective, or otherwise difficult to scan
• A laptop with any software you're comfortable using (e.g., Blender, Cinema 4D, TouchDesigner, etc.)
• A smartphone (ideally with photogrammetry or LiDAR capability)
• Your own lunch and refreshments

Complimentary reading list:

• Ripping Reality – Hito Steyerl (https://eipcp.net/e/projects/heterolingual/files/hitosteyerl/)
• The 3D Additivist Cookbook – Morehshin Allahyari & Daniel Rourke (http://additivism.org/cookbook/)
• The Preserving Machine – Philip K. Dick (https://sickmyduck.narod.ru/pkd097-0.html)
• Loading...800% Slower – David Gauthier (https://research-portal.uu.nl/ws/files/250854470/Gauthier-Loading-800_-Slower.pdf)
• Zombie Media – Garnet Hertz & Jussi Parikka (http://iml601.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Hertz-Zombie-Media-.pdf)
• Glitch Paralogy – Andrew Prior (https://www.academia.edu/3991222/Glitching_Paralogy)