Here is a tutorial to create glitch art using the free program Audacity.

-Andrew

Glitch Art in Post-Modern Perspective, Part 2- Linda Chang

Postmodernism promotes the dematerialism of art, emphasizing the importance of the idea and concept beyond what the audience can see or touch.[1] It erases the line of formality and blurred the difference between high and low art, opening up the possibilities of multiple interpretations based on individual’s perspective. As the modern society gradually gains more dependence on technology, glitch art inherits the postmodern concept and application and takes the failure in mechanical process as a dematerialized form of digital art.

Duchamp’s Fountain started a great controversy on the function and standard of art.  The Postmodern tradition often uses readymades and duplication to “reduce the aesthetic consideration to the choice of the mind, not to the ability or cleverness of the hand.”[1] In the case of glitch art, computer replaces the “hands” and creates the opportunity to alter the significance of aesthetic. Fundamentally, glitches are errors mechanical process or algorithm calculation and normally the failures are instantly discarded. However, from an artistic standpoint, the glitches reveal the process happened behind each pixel on screen and demonstrate the fragility and imperfection of technology.

Glitch art challenges the computer to perform beyond the normal task, and further utilizes it as both the tool and medium. The foundation of technology is composed of both hardware and software, and artists usually modify these components to create the glitch. In the data-bending process, the codes, which are parts of the software, are modify and reconfigured into new visual representation. The process of translating the codes from lines of characters into a new language in visual form conveying the media itself. On the other hand, the glitches from hardware failure directly display the physical damages through its inability to perform. Both methods incorporate technology as the tool to represent of the mechanism as itself, and the visuals from these artifacts usually have a certain look due to the similarity in engineering. [2]

By removing the precision that machines should achieve, British artist Ant Scott demonstrated the essence of the technology itself without the standard and expectation of its performance. Because the artist has no control over the result of erring, the pixels in the final images are the representation of the computer itself, without any manipulation by man. Scott observed the reaction of his audience to his work, and had noticed that those who did not know the source of the images enjoyed the works more than those who did.[3] It was the perspective from the audience that made the difference between an image of disjointed, abstract pixels with bright colors and the error message on the screen representing failure. The message of the work is not embedded in the visual, but in the audience’s understanding of the source and process that generated the image. [4]

As other movements in postmodernism such as video art and pop art, glitch art is expression of the cultural attitudes and context without a standardized product. By directly using the error as the message, glitch art experiments with the perceptive on technology.

1.Margot Lovejoy, Digital Currents: Art in the Electronic Age(Boston: Prentice Hall, 2000), 45-52.

2. Dominic McIver Lope, A Philosophy of Computer Art (London: Routledge, 2010), 3-5,111-113.

3. Iman Moradi, ed., Glitch: Designing Imperfection (New York : Mark Batty Publisher, 2009), 20-21.

4. Rachel Greene, Internet Art (London: Thames & Hudson, 2004), 194.

Ant Scott. DEATHSTAR #01.

Ant Scott. CHROMA #01.

GlitchBot

href="http://bitsynthesis.com/glitchbot/" target="_blank">What is GlitchBot?


GlitchBot is a bot on Flickr that takes random pictures from the site and glitches them using a python code. It does one picture each day. Here are some of the pictures it took.

Disclaimer: Photos are © Flicker

Nick Briz and Databending --Nancy Olivo

Of the many glitch artists contributing to glitch art theory, no one’s resume is as extensive as Nick Briz. Briz is an award-winning new media artist and a figurehead in the glitch art movement. He is the co-founder and organizer of the international GL.ITC/H conference that brought new media artists and theorists together. He is also a professor at the Institute of Chicago, teaching workshops and lectures on glitch art theory and practices. There is an aspect of Nick Briz’s work, which runs the gamut of open-source software to videos, that requires extensive knowledge and creative exploitation of a computer’s code.

Briz’s Glitch Codec provides the tools for databending and delves into a computer’s code to produce glitched visuals seen in his videos “Binary Quotes” and “A New Ecology for the Citizen of the Digital Age”. “Binary Quotes” and “New Ecology” (abv.) are experimental videoes made in a manner not too dissimilar to “The Wordpad Effect”. The binary code of the video was hacked into using hex editing software and then running the raw data through the default video program. [1] A hex editor is software that allows a user to access the binary of a file, since all digital file formats are a bunch of 0s and 1s. [2]  The finished product has a ‘datamosh’ aesthetic, where moving subjects bleed into the foreground. Briz’s viewpoint is that the “glitch” we see is the visual language that the computer sees, since the perceived mistake is on the part of the user, not the computer. These videos are made in some part by utilizing software he created that is now available for download called the “Glitch Codec”.

The “Glitch Codec” is open-source, which means that everyone can download it and modify the code to their purposes. The actual codec is color-coded for the users’ convenience. The header instructs users to modify the pink codes, allowing users the ease of replacing numbers and letters of a digital file without completely destroying it. [1] The Glitch Codec Tutorial he created allows newcomers to make glitch art in a user-friendly environment. The ease in which users of the Glitch Codec are able to produce glitched videos isn’t possible without Briz’s expertise of script-coding.

Briz’s work deals with the appropriation of existing digital mediums to create something new and the accompanying tutorial presents the tools needed to produce them. A magazine interview with Briz reveals his preference for the process of glitch making. 

“While the aesthetics are extremely important, playing multiple roles, they work in tandem with the technology and the (multiple) process[es].” [3]

A strong proponent for open-source software and accessibility, Briz believes that the user can create a relationship with the digital by tinkering with the data and take an active role in the public discussion of glitch art. Glitch art is a tool by which to learn and understand the digital. Rather than consuming new technology, Briz encourages viewers through his art to look at technology in a proactive light and create new and better things with it.

Nick Briz. "Binary Quotes". 2009

 Alternate Link

Nick Briz. "A New Ecology for the Citizen of A Digital Age".  2009

Check out his homepage for other projects!

-------------------------

   1. “GLITCH CODEC TUTORIAL”, n.d., http://nickbriz.com/glitchcodectutorial/.

   2. "Hex editor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hex_editor (accessed October 22, 2012).

   3. Sam Rolfes, “INTERVIEW: Nick Briz  (w/Quick Glitch Tutorial!),” JOIN▾THE▾STUDIO, n.d., http://jointhestudio.com/2011/04/nick-briz-interview-glitch-tutorial/.

EDITED November 13th, 2012 1:55PM