For the What is Your Glitch? videos I wanted to build up on some of the extensive work that has already gone into the documentation, deconstruction and glitching of file formats. Rosa Menkman has already done a great job of documenting some of the more well-known file format glitches in the Vernacular of File Formats, which I recommend you all read. For this exercise I wanted to explore some of the more obscure file formats. Using open source software and Ubuntu has given me access to a wealth of programs that can still generate obscure file formats, such as pcx, pix and sgi. Through these experiments I also found inconsistencies in the way that different programs generate files, which is evident through my decision to use GIMP to convert files rather than Imagemagick in some of the scripts. Enough chit-chat, download the scripts!
After months of hard work I’m happy to finally release Dataface
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Special thanks go to various hackers at fizzPOP for all of their help, GB for programming help and Scribbleboy for general guidance. You can view of preview of the font here on Flickr.
There will soon be a lovely writeup of how it was done and the tools to use to create your own. Until then, I hope you enjoy Dataface!
It looks different from my previous updates as I’m using a different method for glitching the typeface. This may change yet again if a script that I’m working on decides to work.
On 8th April I took a self-prescribed zine making day. Ever since the Gallery Of Owls meetup last year I’ve been increasingly interested in zines as a means of communication and the DIY scene as a whole. After many failed ideas I finally settled on showing the journey of a pixel and how it can be mutated through different ways of manipulating it, specifically through glitch art.
What is presented is the simple manipulation of the cover image over twelve pages. In my never-ending quest to explore glitch art off the screen, what then intrigued me was how I could print this. I then had the idea to print these images onto of printed material. In this way we see how glitches can alter our perception of already existing media. Does it add to or detract from the original intent or is it even noticeable? To pay homage to zine culture I’ve use pages from some of the zines that I’ve collected over the years as well as found papers that have been clogging up my inbox.
This marks somewhat of a new shift for me as it’s the second time that I’ve taken glitch off the screen and into a more physical form. I do like that when I sent the images to print I received this e-mail:
Thank you for our order from —.
Just wanted to double check your artwork - the five files we’ve got are different colours of large pixel-style blocks, is this correct? Just wanted to ensure the files have come through to us correctly.
You may remember from my earlier blog post that I’ve been working on a databent typeface. It was mentioned a fair while back now, but I have been doing bits of work on it every now and then. Here’s a bit of my progress so far:
Ass you can see some of the characters are more recognisable than others. In fact, looking at it again I can’t really remember what some of them were. As I’m planning on having most characters mapped out, in upper and lower case, progress will be a bit slow, so I’ll aim for April for a completed font.
Myself and Mez recently finished a script called Echobender that automatically databends images.
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To use it you’ll need:
A computer with Linux installed. I don’t have a Windows or Mac PC so I can’t test it on those
Sox. On Ubuntu you can install it via sudo apt-get install sox
Convert, which is part of ImageMagick. On Ubuntu you can install it via sudo apt-get install imagemagick
Once you have those installed just execute ./echobender.sh from the terminal and then drop a .jpg or .bmp file into it. The output will be in a folder called “echo”.
I was speaking with Jon earlier about my work and he’s noted that a lot of it has been text based and then asked if I was working towards making a typeface in the same style. I must admit, my recent text based work has mostly been an excuse to use the awesome Kawoszeh typeface, but I feel he’s onto something.
Whilst I’m quite far from a complete typeface I’ve been doing a few experiments:
Using the same svg glitching techniques that I’ve come to love, today, with the help of Twitter folk, I created this rather short animation that compliments my new deviantART ID
My initial aim was glitch the video file itself but then I figured it’d be quite different to glitch each frame individually. To do this I created the original text in Inkscape and then created 52 copies of it. I then opened up the file in a text editor and began messing around with the numbers!
You may have noticed that in my previous post there was a nice little image of the Bull Ring Bull. I did that! Before I go on, it’s not an image that will be used for Birmingham’s City of Culture bid (though if you really like it monies plz). It’s more an image just to represent the work that we’re doing to collect opinions of Birmingham.
Although not a completely original concept (Andy Warhol anyone?) I have utilised a few newly found techniques to create it. Whilst the results, and indeed databending as a whole looks cool I have yet to use it in any real world situations. Until now that is.
Thanks to some help on the Audacity forum I finally know out how to use Audacity to databend. Previously I’d been using mhWavEdit, which has its limitations and just doesn’t feel as familiar as Audacity. From talk on the various databending discussion boards I found that people would often use tools like Cool Edit/Adobe Audition for their bends. Being on Linux and restricting myself to things that run natively (i.e. not under Wine) presented a new challenge. Part of my task was to replicate the methods others have found but under Linux. My ongoing quest is to find things that only Linux can do, which I’m sure I’ll find when I eventually figure out how to pipe data through one program into another!
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