artist's statement
Transister’s Lament//RESET is a meditation on glitch, trans life, and making meaning amidst broken systems.
By tracing histories of glitch art and trans play through DIY circuit-benders and experimental musicians, Nintendo's litigious legacies, early NES glitch hunters, Game Genie codes, and personal play practices, I attempt to piece together an Afterword for videogames. A reimagining of technologies and bodies that accounts for their malleability and transience. Rather than promise a cure for breakdown, what happens when we treat glitch as method? How can we rewire memory to open trans possibilities in the future? And how can we keep resetting as we search for new ways forward.
Madison Schmalzer
Madison Schmalzer (she/they) is a media scholar, competitive speedrunner, and glitch artist. Madison’s scholarship explores trans media art, emergent play practices like speedrunning, and embodied relationships to technology. Her published work can be found in The Journal of Cinema & Media Studies, Game Studies, Animation, Camera Obscura, The Journal of Applied Transgender Studies, and The Journal of Games Criticism. You can find her speedrunning and breaking all manner of media on Twitch and Discord at @MadzBrutal.
last updated: Tue Nov 11 2025 14:58:36 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time)