STEIM, Jonathan Reus

Drive-By Workshop

Glitch! Data bending and the language of file formats

14 Nis 2011

Every technology possesses its own inherent accidents and corruptions. The glitch art movement embraces these errors as a new form of visual aesthetic. In this workshop, glitch artist Rosa Menkman will guide you through the theory and ideals of this brash new art form, and teach basic data bending techniques for creating your own digital corruptions.

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Glitched Image - STEIM Agent

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DETAILS //
Date: April 14, 2011
Time: 18:30 - 22:30
Cost: €15 presale, €20 at the door.
Location: STEIM, Achtergracht 19, Amsterdam
Maximum number of participants: 16

Reserve a spot online through this registration link no later than one week before the workshop!

Data bending is the creative hacking of digital data stored on a disk. All files, images, videos, and sounds are stored on your computer in one nearly endless stream of 0's and 1's (binary code). The computer makes sense of this stream of data by organizing it into chunks, each with it's own unique binary language. We call these chunks files.

With the help of an encoding/decoding program (or codec), the language of a file (the file format) can be translated into something we perceive as an image, sound, or video. Data bending/glitching is all about creatively breaking the language and its translation. It is an art of exploiting the possibility of errors and making them your own.

Topics we will cover include:

  • Theory of glitch art, data bending, and the popularization thereof
  • Theory of image file formats and the visual "languages" they represent
  • Techniques for creating glitched and bent visuals with some of the most common image formats

The hands-on portion of this workshop you will learn to use the languages of some common image formats as a tool for creation, bending original images to create new ones. We will explore how new, often unexpected visual structures can be generated through various methods. No programming knowledge is necessary. This is a beginner's introduction to data bending!

Glitch! Data bending and the language of file formats is presented as part of STEIM's Drive-By workshop series. Short and illuminating hands-on workshops which deal with relevant and eccentric uses of technology intended to teach and inspire artists working with sound (and visuals!).

More info and teacher bio available at steim.org