tag: Glitch

Exactly 10 years ago the first GLI.TC/H was starting in Chicago, IL. Attending that festival was turning point in my practice and, the more I reflect on it, an important part of my personal life. Here I want to reflect on that a bit.

GLI.TC/H is an international gathering of noise & new media practitioners in Chicago from September 29 thru October 03, 2010!

GLI.TC/H features: realtime audio & video performances with artists who misuse and abuse hardware and software; run-time video screenings of corrupt data, decayed media, and destroyed files; workshops and skill-share-sessions highlighting the wrong way to use and build tools; a gallery show examining glitches as processes, systems, and objects; all in the context of ongoing dialogues that have been fostered by experimentation, research, and play. GLI.TC/H is a physical and virtual assembly which stands testament to the energy surrounding these conversations.

For the sixth video in the Design Yourself series the group worked with artist Erica Scourti. For the activity the participants used optical character recognition software (OCR) to generate poetry from their own handwriting and writing (leaflets, signage) found throughout the Barbican building.

The next stage in the workshop was going to be to take this extracted text and run it through a text to speech synthesizer, but unfortunately there wasn’t time to get to this stage.

A fun night spent projecting onto the houseplants

Below are a few examples of how you can use FFmpeg’s minterpolate to create artworks with a glitch aesthetic.

You can read about how I used it for an artwork in this blog post. You can also grab the source file for these videos here. Give it a try yourself!

mc_mode=aobmc:me_mode=bilat:me=ds

ffmpeg -i cat_rainbow_original.mp4 -filter:v "setpts=62.5*PTS,minterpolate='fps=25:mb_size=16:search_param=400:vsbmc=0:scd=none:mc_mode=aobmc:me_mode=bilat:me=ds'" 033_mc_mode=aobmc_me_mode=bilat_me=ds.mp4

mc_mode=aobmc:me_mode=bilat:me=hexbs

ffmpeg -i cat_rainbow_original.mp4 -filter:v "setpts=62.5*PTS,minterpolate='fps=25:mb_size=16:search_param=400:vsbmc=0:scd=none:mc_mode=aobmc:me_mode=bilat:me=hexbs'" 034_mc_mode=aobmc_me_mode=bilat_me=hexbs.mp4

mc_mode=aobmc:me_mode=bilat:me=epzs

ffmpeg -i cat_rainbow_original.mp4 -filter:v "setpts=62.5*PTS,minterpolate='fps=25:mb_size=16:search_param=400:vsbmc=0:scd=none:mc_mode=aobmc:me_mode=bilat:me=epzs'" 035_mc_mode=aobmc_me_mode=bilat_me=epzs.mp4

mc_mode=aobmc:me_mode=bilat:me=umh

ffmpeg -i cat_rainbow_original.mp4 -filter:v "setpts=62.5*PTS,minterpolate='fps=25:mb_size=16:search_param=400:vsbmc=0:scd=none:mc_mode=aobmc:me_mode=bilat:me=umh'" 036_mc_mode=aobmc_me_mode=bilat_me=umh.mp4

This blog post is part of a series. Click the links below to see more examples of FFmpeg’s motion interpolation:

Below are a few examples of how you can use FFmpeg’s minterpolate to create artworks with a glitch aesthetic.

You can read about how I used it for an artwork in this blog post. You can also grab the source file for these videos here. Give it a try yourself!

mc_mode=aobmc:me_mode=bilat:me=tss

ffmpeg -i cat_rainbow_original.mp4 -filter:v "setpts=62.5*PTS,minterpolate='fps=25:mb_size=16:search_param=400:vsbmc=0:scd=none:mc_mode=aobmc:me_mode=bilat:me=tss'" 029_mc_mode=aobmc_me_mode=bilat_me=tss.mp4

mc_mode=aobmc:me_mode=bilat:me=tdls

ffmpeg -i cat_rainbow_original.mp4 -filter:v "setpts=62.5*PTS,minterpolate='fps=25:mb_size=16:search_param=400:vsbmc=0:scd=none:mc_mode=aobmc:me_mode=bilat:me=tdls'" 030_mc_mode=aobmc_me_mode=bilat_me=tdls.mp4

mc_mode=aobmc:me_mode=bilat:me=ntss

ffmpeg -i cat_rainbow_original.mp4 -filter:v "setpts=62.5*PTS,minterpolate='fps=25:mb_size=16:search_param=400:vsbmc=0:scd=none:mc_mode=aobmc:me_mode=bilat:me=ntss'" 031_mc_mode=aobmc_me_mode=bilat_me=ntss.mp4

mc_mode=aobmc:me_mode=bilat:me=fss

ffmpeg -i cat_rainbow_original.mp4 -filter:v "setpts=62.5*PTS,minterpolate='fps=25:mb_size=16:search_param=400:vsbmc=0:scd=none:mc_mode=aobmc:me_mode=bilat:me=fss'" 032_mc_mode=aobmc_me_mode=bilat_me=fss.mp4

This blog post is part of a series. Click the links below to see more examples of FFmpeg’s motion interpolation:

Below are a few examples of how you can use FFmpeg’s minterpolate to create artworks with a glitch aesthetic.

You can read about how I used it for an artwork in this blog post. You can also grab the source file for these videos here. Give it a try yourself!

mc_mode=obmc:me_mode=bilat:me=hexbs

ffmpeg -i cat_rainbow_original.mp4 -filter:v "setpts=62.5*PTS,minterpolate='fps=25:mb_size=16:search_param=400:vsbmc=0:scd=none:mc_mode=obmc:me_mode=bilat:me=hexbs'" 025_mc_mode=obmc_me_mode=bilat_me=hexbs.mp4

mc_mode=obmc:me_mode=bilat:me=epzs

ffmpeg -i cat_rainbow_original.mp4 -filter:v "setpts=62.5*PTS,minterpolate='fps=25:mb_size=16:search_param=400:vsbmc=0:scd=none:mc_mode=obmc:me_mode=bilat:me=epzs'" 026_mc_mode=obmc_me_mode=bilat_me=epzs.mp4

mc_mode=obmc:me_mode=bilat:me=umh

ffmpeg -i cat_rainbow_original.mp4 -filter:v "setpts=62.5*PTS,minterpolate='fps=25:mb_size=16:search_param=400:vsbmc=0:scd=none:mc_mode=obmc:me_mode=bilat:me=umh'" 027_mc_mode=obmc_me_mode=bilat_me=umh.mp4

mc_mode=aobmc:me_mode=bilat:me=esa

ffmpeg -i cat_rainbow_original.mp4 -filter:v "setpts=62.5*PTS,minterpolate='fps=25:mb_size=16:search_param=400:vsbmc=0:scd=none:mc_mode=aobmc:me_mode=bilat:me=esa'" 028_mc_mode=aobmc_me_mode=bilat_me=esa.mp4

This blog post is part of a series. Click the links below to see more examples of FFmpeg’s motion interpolation:

Below are a few examples of how you can use FFmpeg’s minterpolate to create artworks with a glitch aesthetic.

You can read about how I used it for an artwork in this blog post. You can also grab the source file for these videos here. Give it a try yourself!

mc_mode=obmc:me_mode=bilat:me=tdls

ffmpeg -i cat_rainbow_original.mp4 -filter:v "setpts=62.5*PTS,minterpolate='fps=25:mb_size=16:search_param=400:vsbmc=0:scd=none:mc_mode=obmc:me_mode=bilat:me=tdls'" 021_mc_mode=obmc_me_mode=bilat_me=tdls.mp4

mc_mode=obmc:me_mode=bilat:me=ntss

ffmpeg -i cat_rainbow_original.mp4 -filter:v "setpts=62.5*PTS,minterpolate='fps=25:mb_size=16:search_param=400:vsbmc=0:scd=none:mc_mode=obmc:me_mode=bilat:me=ntss'" 022_mc_mode=obmc_me_mode=bilat_me=ntss.mp4

mc_mode=obmc:me_mode=bilat:me=fss

ffmpeg -i cat_rainbow_original.mp4 -filter:v "setpts=62.5*PTS,minterpolate='fps=25:mb_size=16:search_param=400:vsbmc=0:scd=none:mc_mode=obmc:me_mode=bilat:me=fss'" 023_mc_mode=obmc_me_mode=bilat_me=fss.mp4

mc_mode=obmc:me_mode=bilat:me=ds

ffmpeg -i cat_rainbow_original.mp4 -filter:v "setpts=62.5*PTS,minterpolate='fps=25:mb_size=16:search_param=400:vsbmc=0:scd=none:mc_mode=obmc:me_mode=bilat:me=ds'" 024_mc_mode=obmc_me_mode=bilat_me=ds.mp4

This blog post is part of a series. Click the links below to see more examples of FFmpeg’s motion interpolation:

Below are a few examples of how you can use FFmpeg’s minterpolate to create artworks with a glitch aesthetic.

You can read about how I used it for an artwork in this blog post. You can also grab the source file for these videos here. Give it a try yourself!

mc_mode=aobmc:me_mode=bidir:me=epzs

ffmpeg -i cat_rainbow_original.mp4 -filter:v "setpts=62.5*PTS,minterpolate='fps=25:mb_size=16:search_param=400:vsbmc=0:scd=none:mc_mode=aobmc:me_mode=bidir:me=epzs:'" 017_mc_mode=aobmc_me_mode=bidir_me=epzs.mp4

mc_mode=aobmc:me_mode=bidir:me=umh

ffmpeg -i cat_rainbow_original.mp4 -filter:v "setpts=62.5*PTS,minterpolate='fps=25:mb_size=16:search_param=400:vsbmc=0:scd=none:mc_mode=aobmc:me_mode=bidir:me=umh'" 018_mc_mode=aobmc_me_mode=bidir_me=umh.mp4

mc_mode=obmc:me_mode=bilat:me=esa

ffmpeg -i cat_rainbow_original.mp4 -filter:v "setpts=62.5*PTS,minterpolate='fps=25:mb_size=16:search_param=400:vsbmc=0:scd=none:mc_mode=obmc:me_mode=bilat:me=esa'" 019_mc_mode=obmc_me_mode=bilat_me=esa.mp4

mc_mode=obmc:me_mode=bilat:me=tss

ffmpeg -i cat_rainbow_original.mp4 -filter:v "setpts=62.5*PTS,minterpolate='fps=25:mb_size=16:search_param=400:vsbmc=0:scd=none:mc_mode=obmc:me_mode=bilat:me=tss'" 020_mc_mode=obmc_me_mode=bilat_me=tss.mp4

This blog post is part of a series. Click the links below to see more examples of FFmpeg’s motion interpolation:

Below are a few examples of how you can use FFmpeg’s minterpolate to create artworks with a glitch aesthetic.

You can read about how I used it for an artwork in this blog post. You can also grab the source file for these videos here. Give it a try yourself!

mc_mode=aobmc:me_mode=bidir:me=ntss

ffmpeg -i cat_rainbow_original.mp4 -filter:v "setpts=62.5*PTS,minterpolate='fps=25:mb_size=16:search_param=400:vsbmc=0:scd=none:mc_mode=aobmc:me_mode=bidir:me=ntss'" 013_mc_mode=aobmc_me_mode=bidir_me=ntss.mp4

mc_mode=aobmc:me_mode=bidir:me=fss

ffmpeg -i cat_rainbow_original.mp4 -filter:v "setpts=62.5*PTS,minterpolate='fps=25:mb_size=16:search_param=400:vsbmc=0:scd=none:mc_mode=aobmc:me_mode=bidir:me=fss'" 014_mc_mode=aobmc_me_mode=bidir_me=fss.mp4

mc_mode=aobmc:me_mode=bidir:me=ds

ffmpeg -i cat_rainbow_original.mp4 -filter:v "setpts=62.5*PTS,minterpolate='fps=25:mb_size=16:search_param=400:vsbmc=0:scd=none:mc_mode=aobmc:me_mode=bidir:me=ds'" 015_mc_mode=aobmc_me_mode=bidir_me=ds.mp4

mc_mode=aobmc:me_mode=bidir:me=hexbs

ffmpeg -i cat_rainbow_original.mp4 -filter:v "setpts=62.5*PTS,minterpolate='fps=25:mb_size=16:search_param=400:vsbmc=0:scd=none:mc_mode=aobmc:me_mode=bidir:me=hexbs'" 016_mc_mode=aobmc_me_mode=bidir_me=hexbs.mp4

This blog post is part of a series. Click the links below to see more examples of FFmpeg’s motion interpolation:

Below are a few examples of how you can use FFmpeg’s minterpolate to create artworks with a glitch aesthetic.

You can read about how I used it for an artwork in this blog post. You can also grab the source file for these videos here. Give it a try yourself!

mc_mode=obmc:me_mode=bidir:me=umh

ffmpeg -i cat_rainbow_original.mp4 -filter:v "setpts=62.5*PTS,minterpolate='fps=25:mb_size=16:search_param=400:vsbmc=0:scd=none:mc_mode=obmc:me_mode=bidir:me=umh'" 009_mc_mode=obmc_me_mode=bidir_me=umh.mp4

mc_mode=aobmc:me_mode=bidir:me=esa

ffmpeg -i cat_rainbow_original.mp4 -filter:v "setpts=62.5*PTS,minterpolate='fps=25:mb_size=16:search_param=400:vsbmc=0:scd=none:mc_mode=aobmc:me_mode=bidir:me=esa'" 010_mc_mode=aobmc_me_mode=bidir_me=esa.mp4

mc_mode=aobmc:me_mode=bidir:me=tss

ffmpeg -i cat_rainbow_original.mp4 -filter:v "setpts=62.5*PTS,minterpolate='fps=25:mb_size=16:search_param=400:vsbmc=0:scd=none:mc_mode=aobmc:me_mode=bidir:me=tss'" 011_mc_mode=aobmc_me_mode=bidir_me=tss.mp4

mc_mode=aobmc:me_mode=bidir:me=tdls

ffmpeg -i cat_rainbow_original.mp4 -filter:v "setpts=62.5*PTS,minterpolate='fps=25:mb_size=16:search_param=400:vsbmc=0:scd=none:mc_mode=aobmc:me_mode=bidir:me=tdls'" 012_mc_mode=aobmc_me_mode=bidir_me=tdls.mp4

This blog post is part of a series. Click the links below to see more examples of FFmpeg’s motion interpolation:

Below are a few examples of how you can use FFmpeg’s minterpolate to create artworks with a glitch aesthetic.

You can read about how I used it for an artwork in this blog post. You can also grab the source file for these videos here. Give it a try yourself!

mc_mode=obmc:me_mode=bidir:me=fss

ffmpeg -i cat_rainbow_original.mp4 -filter:v "setpts=62.5*PTS,minterpolate='fps=25:mb_size=16:search_param=400:vsbmc=0:scd=none:mc_mode=obmc:me_mode=bidir:me=fss'" 005_mc_mode=obmc_me_mode=bidir_me=fss.mp4

mc_mode=obmc:me_mode=bidir:me=ds

ffmpeg -i cat_rainbow_original.mp4 -filter:v "setpts=62.5*PTS,minterpolate='fps=25:mb_size=16:search_param=400:vsbmc=0:scd=none:mc_mode=obmc:me_mode=bidir:me=ds'" 006_mc_mode=obmc_me_mode=bidir_me=ds.mp4

mc_mode=obmc:me_mode=bidir:me=hexbs

ffmpeg -i cat_rainbow_original.mp4 -filter:v "setpts=62.5*PTS,minterpolate='fps=25:mb_size=16:search_param=400:vsbmc=0:scd=none:mc_mode=obmc:me_mode=bidir:me=hexbs'" 007_mc_mode=obmc_me_mode=bidir_me=hexbs.mp4

mc_mode=obmc:me_mode=bidir:me=epzs

ffmpeg -i cat_rainbow_original.mp4 -filter:v "setpts=62.5*PTS,minterpolate='fps=25:mb_size=16:search_param=400:vsbmc=0:scd=none:mc_mode=obmc:me_mode=bidir:me=epzs'" 008_mc_mode=obmc_me_mode=bidir_me=epzs.mp4

This blog post is part of a series. Click the links below to see more examples of FFmpeg’s motion interpolation:

Below are a few examples of how you can use FFmpeg’s minterpolate to create artworks with a glitch aesthetic.

You can read about how I used it for an artwork in this blog post. You can also grab the source file for these videos here. Give it a try yourself!

mc_mode=obmc:me_mode=bidir:me=esa

ffmpeg -i cat_rainbow_original.mp4 -filter:v "setpts=62.5*PTS,minterpolate='fps=25:mb_size=16:search_param=400:vsbmc=0:scd=none:mc_mode=obmc:me_mode=bidir:me=esa'" 001_mc_mode=obmc_me_mode=bidir_me=esa.mp4

mc_mode=obmc:me_mode=bidir:me=tss

ffmpeg -i cat_rainbow_original.mp4 -filter:v "setpts=62.5*PTS,minterpolate='fps=25:mb_size=16:search_param=400:vsbmc=0:scd=none:mc_mode=obmc:me_mode=bidir:me=tss'" 002_mc_mode=obmc_me_mode=bidir_me=tss.mp4

mc_mode=obmc:me_mode=bidir:me=tdls

ffmpeg -i cat_rainbow_original.mp4 -filter:v "setpts=62.5*PTS,minterpolate='fps=25:mb_size=16:search_param=400:vsbmc=0:scd=none:mc_mode=obmc:me_mode=bidir:me=tdls'"003_mc_mode=obmc_me_mode=bidir_me=tdls.mp4

mc_mode=obmc:me_mode=bidir:me=ntss

ffmpeg -i cat_rainbow_original.mp4 -filter:v "setpts=62.5*PTS,minterpolate='fps=25:mb_size=16:search_param=400:vsbmc=0:scd=none:mc_mode=obmc:me_mode=bidir:me=ntss'"004_mc_mode=obmc_me_mode=bidir_me=ntss.mp4

This blog post is part of a series. Click the links below to see more examples of FFmpeg’s motion interpolation:

As you may have seen in this blog post I made use of FFmpeg’s minterpolate motion interpolation options to make all of the faces morph. There’s quite a few options for minterpolate and many different combinations of options that can be used. i had to consult Wikipedia to figure out exactly what the different motion estimation algorithms were but even with that information I couldn’t visualise how it would change the output. To add to this how I’m using minterpolate isn’t a typical use case.

From 16th January - 3rd February my 2016 piece Transformative Use will be on show at University of Greenwich as part of Granular: The Material Properties of Noise.

Granular noise is explored as a condition of material transfer in this exhibition. A central concern across the works on display is the material state change that occurs within the processes of mediation. Here, disintegration and/or reintegration of elements at a granular level is encountered as a mode of transference between states, whether physical or digital, and as a phase at which a thing starts or ceases to be.

From 12th - 28th January a series of animated portraits, developed in response to the Boom for Real Basquiat exhibition, will be on display at Barbican.

Barbican young creatives, along with artist and curator Antonio Roberts, present a collection of work in response to Basquiat: Boom for Real

Artist and curator Antonio Roberts worked with a group of Barbican young creatives over three months to create artwork in response to the exhibition Basquiat: Boom for Real currently showing in the Barbican Art Gallery.

I’m happy to finally share with the internet (and the TV) the visual ident I made for MTV

If you’re living anywhere except for the US or UK you can see it on your TV screens. For eveyrone else there’s the internet! A massive thanks goes to MTV for inviting me to make an ident - a process which I’ll hopefully write about soon.

Back in January I posted some images of funky patterns. Today I’m formally releasing the script that brought the funk.

JPG Glitch Pattern Generator

Download them from Github.

The first script, pattern_generator.sh, works by exploiting jpg compression on randomly generated images. The script starts by generating a 10px x 10px iamge containing three colours:

It then iteratively decreasese the quality of these images from 78 (or whatever quality you change it to) down to 0. It does this a number of times - defined in loop - whilst also scaling the image by 410% at the end of each loop.

After two weeks VOID came to a close on February 21st. There were samosas. For those that weren’t able to make it down, below are the artworks that I created for the exhibition.

+52°29'13.32", -1°54'47.58"

[ ](http://www.flickr.com/photos/hellocatfood/12393885833/ “+52°29'13.32”, -1°54'47.58" by hellocatfood, on Flickr")

+52°28'47.73", -1°54'31.91"

[ ](http://www.flickr.com/photos/hellocatfood/12393737795/ “+52°28'47.73”, -1°54'31.91" by hellocatfood, on Flickr")

+52°28'40.59", -1°56'8.92"

[ ](http://www.flickr.com/photos/hellocatfood/12393888413/ “+52°28'40.59”, -1°56'8.92" by hellocatfood, on Flickr")

The title of each piece reflects the location that they (the original pictures) were taken at. These were then reduced in size and quality using a number of different methods.

On one of my frequent journeys on the information superhighway I stumbled across Little-Scale’s Mass JPG Killer. This handy little patch allows a user to load any binary file and “glitch” it by overwriting some of the original data with a repeating pattern of user-defined data.

The only problem (for me and people like me) is that I don’t have Max/MSP and can’t install it on Linux, meaning I’ve never actually used it!

Below is my article for Volume 2, Issue 1 of Libre Graphics magazine. You can still buy the issue or download it from their website.

American English is the common language of computing and the internet. That’s quite unfortunate. There are indeed many talented non-English speakers building our websites and shaping our digital future. That potential aside, one only has to look at the programming languages themselves and even small things like web addresses to see a bias towards English. Functions in popular programming languages are derived from English and, while websites that are not in English exist, their URLs are always in English, with only the domain extension (.fr, .pt, .es, .cn, etc.) available to give the website a sense of cultural identity.

Here’s a selection of photos taken by Pete Ashton for Dirty New Media.

Dirty New Media took place on Thursday 21st March at The Barber Institute of Fine Arts. It was one of the most adventurous exhibitions that I’ve curated!

Thanks go out to:

• The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, for taking a chance and including something wildly different to their usual programme
• Vivid Projects, for asking me to curate this exhibition
• University of Birmingham for including Dirty New Media as part of their Arts and Science Festival, and for including videos in their Illuminate outdoor projections
• Pete Ashton, Sam Underwood, Leon Trimble and Ben Neal for providing lots of support and equipment at the last minute
• Keith Dodds, for his awesome work on the programme and other graphic design
• All of the performers, lecture-deliverers and artists that got involved (more below)
• And last, but not least, thanks to you, the audience, for travelling from the far reaches of England to attend Dirty New Media! You helped to make it a success!

Here’s a list of all of the works/pieces/artists included in the programme, should you want to check out more:

Dirty New Media will be making its way to The Barber Institute of Fine Arts on 21st March as part of the University of Birmingham’s Arts and Science Festival.

Super Special Essay

Shawne Holloway + Steven Hammer - 1_approach.dnm: (inter)active viewership in dirty new media

The invisibility of various technologies, interfaces, and wares, via their often seductive and seamless interfaces, fosters a kind of cultural ocularcentrism[1] vis-a-vis capitalist consumerism. Dirty New Media (DNM) seeks to disengage our perception of screen-based activity from the two-dimensional, and critique material production of objects and systems that produce, curate, and guide reception of various texts.

Dirty New Media will be making its way to The Barber Institute of Fine Arts on 21st March as part of the University of Birmingham’s Arts and Science Festival. Over the week I’ll be providing an overview of the upcoming event.

AV Performances | 7-10pm

Minuek

Circuit Ben

Norah Lorway

Meta

Dirty New Media // REVOLUTION 02

Dirty New Media will be making its way to The Barber Institute of Fine Arts on 21st March as part of the University of Birmingham’s Arts and Science Festival. Over the week I’ll be providing an overview of the upcoming event.

Screenings | 6-7pm

Modulate - O>L>S

Description: A short audio visual journey exploring abstract narrative, movement, shape, colour, non verbal expression and spatial awareness. Sounds sourced from “The Octophonic Loop System"8.1 sound installation by Bobby Bird /Modulate, commissioned by Francisco Lopez.

Dirty New Media will be making its way to The Barber Institute of Fine Arts on 21st March as part of the University of Birmingham’s Arts and Science Festival. Over the week I’ll be providing an overview of the upcoming event.

Screenings | 6-7pm

Michael Lightborne - What Did The Duck Say To The Pig?

A stupid joke, told badly.

Bryan Peterson - [Dirty] inputs/processes.outputs

Appropriated Phil Morton video, twisted and built through analog video mixers

Dirty New Media will be making its way to The Barber Institute of Fine Arts on 21st March as part of the University of Birmingham’s Arts and Science Festival. Over the week I’ll be providing an overview of the upcoming event.

Exhibition | 4-10pm

Jamie Boulton - C:\Users\5629a7\Pictures\IDDisplay.jpg

> Applying reality safeguards… > Discarding morality values… > Deactivating motivation protocol… > Accessing Internet Database… > Initialising… > Ready.

URRRGH - __KWEEN_CLARISSURRRGH, __YOUCHOOB_4_EVA, __ALADDINZ_CAT

Dirty New Media will be making its way to The Barber Institute of Fine Arts on 21st March as part of the University of Birmingham’s Arts and Science Festival. Over the week I’ll be providing an overview of the upcoming event.

Lectures | 4-6pm

Jon Cates - WTF?! is D1RTY N3W M3DI∆?!

Dan O’Hara - An Irregular and Spasmodic History of Glitches and other Systemic Stutterings

Glitches interrupt the smooth realism of our mediated experience of the everyday world, from malfunctioning train announcement boards to distorted video streams and white noise in our phone calls. But is it only machines that glitch, or does ‘glitching’ exist in nature too?

Dirty New Media will be making its way to The Barber Institute of Fine Arts on 21st March as part of the University of Birmingham’s Arts and Science Festival. Over the week I’ll be providing an overview of the upcoming event.

Workshop | 12-2pm

Optical Theremin workshop with Circuit Ben

An optical theremin is a motion-operated instrument, based on an LM386 op-amp chip, we’ll be building them from scratch, learning the basic principles behind audio manipulation using voltage, and making some unholy racket! No soldering experience necessary.

Dirty New Media will be making its way to The Barber Institute of Fine Arts on 21st March as part of the University of Birmingham’s Arts and Science Festival. Over the week I’ll be providing an overview of the upcoming event.

Screenings | 6-7pm

Theodore Darst - Approach

Following a group shows’ theme of “home in the digital age”, Approach utilizes 3D modeling software to create a private digital sculpture garden textured, in part, with personal screenshots.

Dirty New Media will be making its way to The Barber Institute of Fine Arts on 21st March as part of the University of Birmingham’s Arts and Science Festival. Over the week I’ll be providing an overview of the upcoming event.

Exhibition | 4-10pm

Kate Pemberton - Tracert

Tracert (pronounced trace route) is an examination of how traditional craft ideas translate into the modern multi-media networked world. A sampler has been cross-stitched by hand from a transposed graphic of a tracert DOS command.

Dirty New Media will be making its way to The Barber Institute of Fine Arts on 21st March as part of the University of Birmingham’s Arts and Science Festival. Over the week I’ll be providing an overview of the upcoming event.

Exhibition | 4-10pm

Dec Ackroyd - Cityscape #46

Cityscape #46 image is from a series of GIF based images that are made to resemble city skylines, the images are created using digitally broken image files

An engaging day of performances and interactive installations from digital artists, hacktivists and new media explorers from the West Midlands, Chicago and beyond. Artworks take the form of hacked and customised hardware, accessories, demos, lectures, data-mangling, projection and more!

This eclectic, expectation bending event is presented by Vivid Projects in association with artist/curator Antonio Roberts and The Barber institute of Fine Arts.

/-;-/-;-/– AV Performances –\-;-\-;-\ 7 – 10pm

Minuek Norah Lorway Circuit Ben

I’m happy to announce that I’ll have a regular column in volume two of Libre Graphics magazine, starting with the first issue, Localisation/Internationalization

This February, Libre Graphics Magazine has reached a major milestone. We have published and shipped issue 2.1, the first number in our second volume. Titled “Localization/Internationalisation,” this issue explores the unique problems of non-latin type, the hyper-localisation of custom clothing patterns and international visual languages, among other topics.

AlphabeNt, the book which I wrote the foreword for and spoke briefly about at GLI.TC/H 2112, is out now for either $30AUD or $70AUD (special edition)

AlphabeNt: Experiments from A–Z presents the 26 characters of the Latin alphabet as you haven’t seen them before: broken, distorted and aesthetically corrupted using digitally destructive techniques not usually found in the designers handbook. Co-authors Drew Taylor and Daniel Purvis created the characters using audio editing software such as Audacity, using standard text editors, by overloading flatbed document scanners, shaking iPhones and kicking computer tables.

Glitch Webcam* is a small script that was developed during my time at Databit.me as part of the Open Camera project, which aimed at finding inexpensive ways to take images. Since then it has been in the MEMIC exhibition in November 2012 and usually makes an appearance wherever my laptop goes.

At only five lines of code and ~254 bytes, this script is a very quick way to glitch photos taken automatically by a webcam. The project was originally demoed using a Raspberry Pi/Raspbian and a digital photo frame, though problems with USB have prevented me from doing that since.

FRAME_birmingham, the three-month long exhibition of artwork by national and international artists at venues across Birmingham, is now in its second month. Fade to Daft has been taken down from the Penfold Grange Suite of Hotel du Vin, but it can still be purchased online for £180. The next piece in that series, Plenty, can be seen in Birmingham Central Library, near the entrance to the lending library. The image is an image remix of the song Plenty by Rob Crow/Thingy.

For Some of My Favourite Songs I utilised Pure Data Extended (I’m using a beta version) to read the audio files and then save them as images. Pure Data is usually used for the production of music and/or generative live visuals, so to using it to produce jpg images from almost nothing, or random data input is quite new to me!

In search of a jpg header

The most important part of this process is knowing how to construct and apply a jpg header to data. Wikipedia informed me that all jpg images begin with FF D8. I thought that all I would need to do is use a hex editor, such as Ghex or Bless Hex Editor, to add those byte values to a file.

I was recently interviewed by Jamie Boulton for his final-year dissertation. He is currently studying Visual Communication at Birmingham City University, where he’s recently become very interested in glitch art. Below is the whole interview, with links and pictures added by me.

First of all, what is your definition of a glitch?

A glitch is an error or something unexpected.

How did you first come in contact with glitch art? What were your initial impressions of it and what made you pursue it as an art form?

A series of self-portraits. The title comes from a random string that was found in one of the images

More here

I recently got a very nice package in the post all the way from Australia! Drew Taylor (aka bowsneak) sent me a package of art and zines, one of which was GLITCH COP!3R

[GLITCH COP!3R] was created as part of Sticky Institutes Target 168 2012 zinemaking challenge, in which a zine had to be created within 168 hours (1 week). The ‘secret’ theme for the challenge was ‘C3100 photo copier’.

Recently I’ve been making a few video loops for Dreambait Recordings to use in their shows. The videos, made using video samples and Pure Data, focus on feedback loops. For BYOB Birmingham on Friday 16th March I decided to showcase these video feedback creations. Some photos of it in action:

The Pure Data patch used to make these visuals, inspired by this patch is pretty simple: Put an object on screen, take a snapshot of the screen and then apply that snapshot as a texture to another object. You can download it below

If you weren’t able to make it out to the streets of London in February to catch the Glitch Art exhibition as part of Bus Tops here’s a video featuring a selection of the works:

You can see one of my pieces show up at 2:08. There’s some more videos from the project on al4ie’s YouTube channel

For my performance with Freecode as part of Network Music Festival I wanted to move away from producing visuals that consisted mostly of video playback and move towards generative art. Demos of this were posted on my Flickr site, and the first performance that utilised this new approach happened on 26th January

The feedback from people online and at the performance was really positive, with a lot of people were asking how to do something similar. The patch I made for it was very messy so I (albeit slowly) remade part of the patch that achieves that effect. It’s available for download below

GLI.TC/H happened in Chicago, Amsterdam and Birmingham last year but I’ve only just gotten around to making this short video of the event in Birmignham, using footage captured by Pete Ashton

Enjoy!

(I had previously made an overview video for GLI.TC/H 2010)

Hugh S. Manon and Daniel Temkin recently published a great paper on glitch art called “Notes on Glitch”. It reads more like a collection of thoughts than one concise paper, but it’s still an awesome read.

Glitch Safari (from myself and noteNdo) and Dataface both receive a mention in the gallery, along with other awesome works.

Out of all of the notes there were a couple of points that stood out to me, which I’d like to add my own thoughts to.

On Sunday 27th November I did a one-day micro-residency at Fargo Hack Play Space in Coventry. I was asked to bring unfinished projects, completed projects or something completely new that I wanted to start on. I have a fair bit of Pure Data and Processing code and ideas that need(ed) a lot of attention but I had serious doubts of whether they could be completed in six hours.

To say I had absolutely no idea what I was going to achieve in one day would be quite an understatement.

GLI.TC/H has started and on Saturday November 19th it’ll be making its way to VIVID in Birmingham, UK! The full programme is available here, and as a PDF. Over the week I’ll be providing a bitesized overview of the upcoming events.

Realtime A/V: Jon Satrom

Jon Satrom presents a prepared desktop performance, where he uses the operating system itself as an instrument:

Bio

Satrom spends his days fixing things and making things work. He spends his evenings breaking things and searching for unique blips inherent to the systems he explores and exploits. Satrom teaches a course on Glitch Art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, runs a creative web and video studio called Studio Thread, performs real-time audio/video, creates colorful glitch-ware, and is involved in various collective online and offline new-media efforts.    

GLI.TC/H has started and on Saturday November 19th it’ll be making its way to VIVID in Birmingham, UK! The full programme is available here, and as a PDF. Over the week I’ll be providing a bitesized overview of the upcoming events.

Realtime A/V: Art of Failure

Nicolas Maigret of Art of Failure will perform 8 Silences, which is a completely audio-only performance:

8 silences offers a sensible representation of Internet by broadcasting audio streams that travel and reverberate trough the web. Initially silents, the streams progressively incorporate an infinity of transformations or “errors” that modify the sound as it circulates on the network. These alterations are comparable to a form of erosion caused by the network space - they are a key to allow different mental representations of this digital topography. Presented as a live performance, 8 silences is a sound immersion in the heart of data flows. 8 silences is a live piece made from mixing together several silent ogg and mp3 stream loops with different quality settings (error corrections are bypassed). Each loop is going to a different location on the globe, and then coming back to the location of the concert venue. Performers stand with a laptop in different parts of the venue (non scenic performance). The audio streamloops are exchanged in wifi around the public.

GLI.TC/H has started and on Saturday November 19th it’ll be making its way to VIVID in Birmingham, UK! The full programme is available here, and as a PDF. Over the week I’ll be providing a bitesized overview of the upcoming events.

Realtime A/V: Minuek and Chromatouch

The second of our Realtime A/V performances comes from UK-based VJs Minuek and Chromatouch. Here they are as a part of the VJ collective Freecode earlier in the year:

GLI.TC/H has started and on Saturday November 19th it’ll be making its way to VIVID in Birmingham, UK! The full programme is available here, and as a PDF. Over the week I’ll be providing a bitesized overview of the upcoming events.

Screening: Andrew Benson - Click on it

Bio

Andrew Benson is a visual artist and performer based in San Francisco. His multi-disciplinary and experimental work is a playful engagement with interconnected systems and feedback, and is the result of complex technological or physical processes. ÊWithin the technical abstract spaces, a clumsy or self-conscious human presence challenges the purely analytical and synthetic nature of digital representation. As an extension to studio work, Andrew Benson has worked as Video Designer/Director for a number of high profile touring musical acts. He has been teaching electronic media courses at San Francisco Art Institute since 2008 and creates online content for Cycling ‘74 Software.

GLI.TC/H has started and on Saturday November 19th it’ll be making its way to VIVID in Birmingham, UK! The full programme is available here, and as a PDF. Over the week I’ll be providing a bitesized overview of the upcoming events.

Screening: Jon Satrom - Too Many Cats

Bio

Satrom spends his days fixing things and making things work. He spends his evenings breaking things and searching for unique blips inherent to the systems he explores and exploits. Satrom teaches a course on Glitch Art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, runs a creative web and video studio called Studio Thread, performs real-time audio/video, creates colorful glitch-ware, and is involved in various collective online and offline new-media efforts.    

GLI.TC/H has started and on Saturday November 19th it’ll be making its way to VIVID in Birmingham, UK! The full programme is available here, and as a PDF. Over the week I’ll be providing a bitesized overview of the upcoming events.

Screening: Jeff Donaldson - Pin 1/12 effect

]

Bio

Jeff Donaldson is a multimedia artist, guitarist and composer of electronic and acoustic sound. An active member internationally in micromusic as the audio/visual project Notendo, solo work and collaborations as Odea Duo Vii, HD and Wzt Hearts, JeffÕs work encompasses a broad spectrum of audio/visual composition and improvisation. In 2001, with the intent to create animation entirely with his own hardware modifications, Jeff began creatively short-circuiting NES consoles. There is no new code involved, only raw, machine logic. This work has led to international recognition in new media art and has inspired people world-wide to pursue similar expressions.

GLI.TC/H has started and on Saturday November 19th it’ll be making its way to VIVID in Birmingham, UK! The full programme is available here, and as a PDF. Over the week I’ll be providing a bitesized overview of the upcoming events.

Lecture: Blind Optics

Gabriel Menotti presents his paper entitled “Blind Optics:”

In order to investigate the relation between cinema and technology, it seems necessary to escape the medium’s own parameters of analysis. Taking a step in this direction, one might adopt Friedrich Kittler’s notion of “optical media,” a classification based not on the morphological effects of cinema, but on the operational principles of its apparatus. However, while Kittler’s framework discloses the mechanisms of figurative representation, it casts an even darker shadow over the constitution of technique. To analyse the cinematographic apparatus as purely optical is to ignore that its technical underpinnings are also mechanical and chemical, electromagnetic and computational. In order to bring these material aspects to the surface of the medium, one could borrow a strategy that has been largely employed with aesthetic ends: that of blinding or disrupting the camera eye. A vast tradition of video art and experimental cinema, recently joined by practices such as generative programming, presents visuals that are not produced by clear lenses, but that mostly result from celluloid film, electric circuits and digital codification. This paper calls attention to the ways in which this sort of blind optics produces images not by the means of abstracting the world, but through the abstraction of the bare apparatus. Thus, it sheds some light in the processes of inscription and transmission that ultimately constitute audiovisual media, allowing us to grasp some of their particularities.

GLI.TC/H has started and on Saturday November 19th it’ll be making its way to VIVID in Birmingham, UK! The full programme is available here, and as a PDF. Over the week I’ll be providing a bitesized overview of the upcoming events.

Lecture: GLTI.CH Karaoke

Continuing their events at GLI.TC/H in Chicago and Amsterdam GLTI.CH Karaoke will be presenting their work, followed by a live performance!

Our aim is simple: to bring together people & collaborate on Karaoke duets. This desire, of course, is not innovative in itself; karaoke is one of the world’s favorite pastimes. Where GLTI.CH is different is its scope of our ‘bringing together’. So far, we have hooked up London with Kumamoto City, Japan & Seoul, South Korea. As a project that seeks to set up unnecessarily-elaborate portals of amateur singing, GLTI.CH Karaoke posits that there is discernible value & joy in 1) the collective stumbling & frustrations met in the face of tech limits, language barriers & time zone differences 2) oblique experimentation & 3) embracing & folding in “errors” in future iterations versus seeking to “overcome” or eradicate them. GLTI.CH Karaoke is not a solitary affair. At its simplest each event is the manifestation of sophisticated levels of collaboration & coordination between GLTI.CH & the attendees of each event, as well as the development teams of Livestream, Google+ & divX, & the individuals who selflessly hash together & upload karaoke videos to YouTube. Using the universal grammar of karaoke we posit the glitch as a site of artistic autonomy.

GLI.TC/H has started and on Saturday November 19th it’ll be making its way to VIVID in Birmingham, UK! The full programme is available here, and as a PDF. Over the week I’ll be providing a bitesized overview of the upcoming events.

Workshop: Glitch Codec Tutorial

Nick Briz presents a tutorial in creating glitch art by hacking video codecs:

This workshop/lecture is titled the Glitch Codec Tutorial. Here I demonstrate how to create the “glitch codec” a hacked piece of software I use to make intentional glitches. The Glitch Codec Tutorial is one way to experience glitch art. The Glitch Codec Tutorial can be used to make glitch art, but it is not a tool in and of itself. Rather, it is a means to a tool or, more appropriately, a means to a method[ology] of production.

GLI.TC/H has started and on Saturday November 19th it’ll be making its way to VIVID in Birmingham, UK! The full programme is available here, and as a PDF. Over the week I’ll be providing a bitesized overview of the upcoming events.

Workshop: Easy Circuit Bending

Nikki Pugh presents a workshop exploring the basics of circuit bending. Add a light sensor to a desk toy in order to distort the sounds it makes by waving your hand over it. A bit like this:

GLI.TC/H 20111 programme

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Download PDF

—————————————– [Chicago, US] —————————————– THU: Nov 3 @7pm – GLI.TC/H Gallery Opening @MBLABS

Alma Alloro [IL], Anthony Antonellis [DE], Melissa Barron [US], Mark Beasley [US], Sophia Brueckner [US], ffd8 (Ted Davis) [CH], Jeff Donaldson && Daniel Temkin [US], Leanne Eisen [CA + US], Noah Eisenbruch [US], Gijs Gieskes [NL], jimpunk [www], Jeff Kolar [US], Harvey Moon [US], aandnota (Alex Myers) [US], Osada Genki [JP], Chelsea Arden Parker [US], Rob Ray [US], Pox Party (Jon Satrom && Ben Syverson) [US], Ant Scott [UK], Phillip Stearns [US], Party Time! Hexcellent! (Rachel Weil) [US], youpy [JP], Recyclism™ And all the bumper artists!

In Middletown, Connecticut between November 4th-6th? Alvin Lucier: A Celebration, is taking place at Wesleyan University’s Center for the Arts. I Am Sitting in a Room, along with other videos that respond to Lucier’s work of same name, will be screening at the Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery.

This festival, in recognition of Alvin Lucier’s 80th birthday, will include an exhibition, symposium, films and a series of four concerts. The symposium will bring together key composers, musicians and writers to discuss Mr. Lucier’s work and influence.

I was interviewed by Imperica recently about GLI.TC/H coming to Birmingham.

For the viewer, appreciating Glitch art inevitably depends on the form that the work takes, and an understanding of the work not being “broken” but a new construction in itself. Glitched artwork “… can be beautiful, but it can also be chaotically noisy. It isn’t just an hour of TV static or hard noise. They have a narrative; they tell a story in some way. I want the viewer to see the value in things that are corrupted, bent, and broken.”

The video for Self-Inflicted Haircut by Meatfeast is now online!

Guess which parts I provided…

For this video I utilised the What Glitch? scripts (specifically the pcx script) and Joe Friedl’s - (aka grampajoe) Autodatamosh Perl script.

You can buy Meatfeast’s EP, Hands Like Claws, on Amazon or listen to it on good ol’ Spotify.

My bumper for GLI.TC/H 2011. Download the Pure Data patch that made this and make your own!

Discuss it with others on the Pure Data forum.

.our_name/website { GLI.TC/H gli.tc/h } .theDates { Chicago_USA: Nov 4-6 2011; Amsterdam_NL: Nov 11-12 2011; Birmingham_UK: Nov 19 2011; }

I’ve also recently started making diagrams of my Pure Data patches. I hope they go some way to helping people learn Pure Data

The making of Skin Cells was quite a long process. It started projecting my Bunnies video onto me and filming this. I then took this and ran it through the What Glitch? sgi script to create a glitched version of the video, leaving me with two versions of the video.

When it came to merging the two videos together I took some inspiration from Tidepool by Tabor Robak. Putting the videos on top of each other I wanted to use chromakeying to reveal parts of the video at the bottom at the same time as really oversaturating the video. For this I employed the help of Pure Data:

Skin cells breaking up.

Made using a mixture of Pure Data, Gridflow and Din.

DO iT TO_GATHER!

GLI.TC/H was a simple idea that was hatched upon the notion of folks gathering together and engaging/chatting/debating the issues/theories/concerns of failure, systems, art, && glitches.

We were able to realize this gathering last year in Chicago. GLI.TC/H 2010 brought people together for five days of glitchy art, hacking/coding workshops, discussions, screenings, lectures, and realtime audio/video performances. All events were free & open to the public and ended up exposing an extremely diverse, amazingly deep, somewhat quirky community.

Whilst I was in Venice for the Laptop Meets Musicians festival with BiLE I had the pleasure of (finally) meeting {rukano} who later showed me this really awesome way of displaying uncleared video memory with LOVE and LICK. I’m using Ubuntu 11.04 with LÖVE version love_0.7.2-0natty2_i386.deb.

Once you have downloaded and installed LÖVE and LICK (instructions for different platforms are provided on their websites) create the following files:

main.lua

require "LICK" require "LICK/lib" lick.reset = true lick.clearFlag = true

function love.load() fb = love.graphics.newFramebuffer(800,600) end

function love.draw() love.graphics.draw(fb, 0, 0) end

function love.keypressed (a) print(a) if a == " " then fb = love.graphics.newFramebuffer(800,600) end end

conf.lua

A limited amount of glitched badges featuring stills from this video are now available for £2.25 plus postage and packaging. Sold in packs of two randomly chosen designs. Can also be exchanged for beer

Back in April Film Division took part in the 2011 Sci-Fi-London 48 hour film challenge:

We’ll give you a randomly generated film title, some dialogue and a prop list. You’ll then have 48 hours to write, shoot and edit a complete five minute film… hard work but fun!

I provided some glitches - using the What Glitch? scripts - and other graphics for this film, which you can watch below. My glitches are at about 3:16.

What Revolution? is featured in the Showcase section of issue 1.2 of Libre Graphics Magazine. The theme for this issues is Use Cases and Affordances:

Our software tools, in their affordances and potential use cases, define for us, to a certain extent, what we may and may not do. Those decisions are put in place by the people who design the tools. Together, as users, developers and all areas between the two extremes, we boil in a constantly reconfiguring sea of use possibilities, material and mental affordances.

I was unsatisfied with the way the default smilies on my blog were looking at me so I decided to glitch them :-)

Download them from here

These smilies were made using GlitchSVG and a bit of post-processing. To use them on your Wordpress site just replace the ones located at /wp-includes/images/smilies/ with these ones ;-)

During a few beers at GLI.TC/H a few months ago myself and notendo noticed the arcade machine in the corner was totally glitching out!

These kind of natural glitches happen all around us every day when we least expect it, but if you’re lucky enough to have caught these glitches on camera submit it to the Glitch Safari group and help create a map of glitches!

Tonight sees I Am Sitting In A Room being screened as part of GLI.TC/H. After a Panel Discussion at 4pm at SAIC Flaxman Theatre we move onto Transistor for the screening, starting at 8pm. You’re definitely in for a treat from some of the best benders, moshers, glitchers and [insert glitch sub-genre here]. Check the schedule for more awesome events

Last night team GLI.TC/H was hard at work getting the gallery at Roxaboxen ready.

The gallery opening kicks off at 6:30pm at Roxaboxen and features work from some really great glitch art, videos and artware (oh, and one of my pieces). Be there.

GLI.TC/H SEP 29 – OCT 3, 2010, Chicagi HTTP://GLI.TC/H

No horses unfortunately

After many sleepless horse my bumper for GLI.TC/H is complete. It’s a collection of many different glitch techniques including vector glitching and compressing to 1 bit images. You can see some progress shots on flickr

Play very loud.

The results of trying to take a screenshot using Shutter whilst spinning the desktop. See more on flickr.

Making Dataface was really quite an exciting journey. What started off as an attempt to make a typeface inspired by glitch art turned out to be a story of collaboration, exploration and hours of research. Here, I will go through my process.

As you may have seen from my previous experiments in vector databending it’s totally possible to manipulate vector files. My original method for creating Dataface was to save each glyph in the Liberation font to an SVG file and then go through the process of glitching it for each file. Obviously this would’ve taken me a long time, hence why there was very little activity between my original announcement in January and when I started work on it again a few weeks ago.

I recently turned on the TV to find that the channel it was last on was totally glitching!

What I kept trying to figure out was where the glitch was occurring. Sure, it’s on screen, but what part of the signal is getting errors? I imagine that there’s three places it could’ve gone wrong: at Virgin Media headquaters, on the receiver at home or from the HDMI cable connecting the receiver to the TV. I turned the channel over and the glitch was gone, but that still doesn’t rule out where it could’ve been happening.

As a result of the GNOME Usability Hackfest I’ve been trying out the GNOME Shell a lot. Although the result of an error with graphics cards I quite like the output of the integrated Screencast feature (Ctrl + Shift + Alt + R) with the cursor almost seeming lost

Myself and Mez recently finished a script called Echobender that automatically databends images.

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”.

After seeing my newly created twitter background, Jon (aka scribbleboy) asked me to do one for him. So I did. In fact, I did several versions

He asked for something red, so I took a few birthday pictures and did the equivalent of putting them through a shredder!