A modern example of glitches being used as an art form is demonstrated within Playboi Carti’s 2017 music video for ‘Magnolia’. The music video features the use of distortion and digital effects, as well as CGI superimpositions like butterflies and blood splatters flying around the scene. Shaviro (2017) suggests that these “glitch aesthetics” interrupt and affect smooth, proper continuity, and the disruption challenges the traditional sense of narrative structure. ‘Magnolia’ additionally uses extremely fast paced and jarring edits, cuts and transitions, going from Playboi Carti walking around New York with his friends, to them in clubs and parties, to them in cars and back and forth between several of these different locations, seemingly without a narrative or structure.

The ‘glitches’ in the editing as they cut between scenes and overlay surreal effects onto the characters within the video help fragment and destroy any sense of narrative there may have once been, reflecting the chaos and fast paced nature of modern urban life, as well as the sense of energy within the song. Shaviro’s concept of the post-cinematic effect is shown to be prevalent within Playboi Carti’s ‘Magnolia’, through the disruption and fragmentation of imagery. The ‘Magnolia’ music video challenges any traditional concept of visual unity and coherence between the narrative of the visuals and the audio and thus is clearly seen to disrupt conventional perceptions of space and time.

Moreover, Chion’s (2019) idea that sound adds value to cinematic images as a part of an “audiovisual contract” is contradicted by Shaviro suggesting that within music videos this contract is reversed. Therefore, within ‘Magnolia’, we see that the images add value to the audio, with the crazy energy of the song being amplified by the crazy edits, fragmentation and disruption of the images within the video, perfectly demonstrating Shaviro’s ideas surrounding glitch as a post-cinematic effect.

CARTI, PLAYBOI, “Magnolia (Official Music Video)” Youtube Video, 3:24, July 10, 2017 YouTube.com/watch?v=oCveByMXd_0

CHION, MICHEL. Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen. Edited by CLAUDIA GORBMAN. Columbia University Press, 2019. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7312/chio18588.

SHAVIRO, STEVEN. “GLITCH AESTHETICS.” In Digital Music Videos, 51–75. Rutgers University Press, 2017. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1pwtdmg.5.

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