Glitching the Street

Glitching the Street extends the visual language of "Glitching the Commute" from the interior of the bus to the dynamic open spaces of the sidewalk and streets. This series turns its lens to the vibrant chaos of street festivals, the layered textures of local markets, the curated facades of street shops/houses/buildings, and the fleeting interactions on every corner. The glitch art process is applied to these scenes of concentrated life, fracturing the certainty of the urban landscape. By interrupting the vibrant colours of a festival, the orderly chaos of a market, or the solitary figure paused before a storefront, the work highlights the tension between public celebration and private reflection, between commerce and community. It suggests that the street itself is a living system; both robust and fragile, constantly pulsating with an energy that borders on a beautiful, digital decay.

LINES OF DISCONTENT

Salsa on St. Clair, Toronto, Summer 2025

In this piece, I captured my quiet frustration of waiting in long lines for food, stretched across sidewalks like urban rituals of delay. Here, the glitch effect fractures the scene, mirroring the emotional static of impatience, anonymity, and the strange choreography of public hunger. My photo and glitched transformation attempts to turn a mundane moment into a digital lament: Why must nourishment come with such a cost to time and spirit? This image resists the normalization of queues, inviting us to see the street not as a place of transaction, but of tension, rhythm, and resistance.

* If anyone portrayed in these art pieces has a concern, let me know to remove it. yecidortega at gmail.com