Tag Archives: glitch art

Micro-Project: Glitch(y) Art!!!!

First of all, I must apologize for the delay in posting this up. I had some problems posting this up online as the files constantly ended up in quarantine due to my firewall setting that I had set in my desktop. And when I managed to get it out and open it with Photoshop CC, photoshop no longer recongizes it even when I edited it 1/4 down the text file.

So while installing Photoshop CS6, I tried it with Paint in Windows 7.  I edited it directly from the jpg file and opened it with Paint. The results are as followed:

Original:

Flower Hands

Glitches:

 

Windows Glitch 1

Windows Glitch 2

Windows Glitch 3

Windows Glitch 4

After, installing Photoshop CS6 for Mac, I had my go. I edited the code from the psd file instead of jpg.  I got this as the result.

Original:

Singapore City

Glitches:

Glitch 1

Glitch 2

Glitch 3

Glitch 4

Glitch 5

Glitch 6

Glitch 7

For the Psd files, I actually started playing with the compression commands which can be found at from the 4th line onwards. So the last 3 glitch art jpgs’ are actually pixellated because I changed the compression.  And as you can see, the windows gets the job done but the mac gets the job perfected!

The whole process of doing this created the randomisation of the art and that it was never going to be what you expected. Imagine if you had to create something that had no plan and hence you could plan the end product. The ability to interpret lies in our ability to explore and accept that this is a form of art.  This kickstarts the process. It initially made me uncomfortable, having to not plan to get randomized image based on your random change. The products that came up during the initial stage was suggestive but not definite. It challenged the mind to continue for progress seemed blurred. However, when you start doing more changes and seeing the change, it is the sequence itself that you see the art. Hence, in the end, it was not just the mere one product that made me see it as an art form but it was the progression through the sequence of attempts that made me see through this art form. I still don’t fancy it but I surely accept it as a art form.

The thing about this art form, is that it clearly breaks the line of perfection or what we percieve to be perfect. When I begin an art form, I always have a perceived idea of the perfect form. This form is my destination and many a times, it does restrict possibilities unless I get inspired by something else. In the research business world, its called mission creeping and it would cause the banks to usually cut your loan amount. But this isn’t the Finance world. Its art! The only restriction is the artist when you do glitch art- there are no restrictions other than that cause its GLITCH! So the working process is something that I think will broaden our perspective. So very different from what I do in real life!

Anyways, was curious about this method so I did a little google about this and came across this rather interesting websites where they can do the glitch for you( though it serves no point for exploration and experimentation)

  1. Glitch Image Generator Animal Glitcher

Open any image file as a word document and you’ll notice a ton of text data that may seem like nonsense. That’s the information that makes up a .jpeg image file. Adding or modifying this information in any way corrupts the image in a visibly recognizable way. Expanding upon this concept, Georg Fischer developed a simple website interface that allows you to upload and image and modify it with “glitch amount” “sjpg quality” levers. Experiment with the generator. Fun stuff indeed.

2.  http://glitche.com/

This is just a website of the app that you can use. The website is actually the one that is quite impressive with the different types of glitch art collage.

 

The above are just examples of how you can suck the joy of experimentation and exploration but are of course worth trying and see what you come up with. But if you really want to create glitch art, mess that code up. You might end up understanding some parts of the psd code (like me when i discovered the compression component )!

 

Cheers

Jaysee

Jodi.org // OMG!!!!

I started with the usual, by victimising a friend of mine to go through this website with me and give his comments. This time it was my best friend from the police force ( and he says his division was too secretively he can’t tell me what he does). I just told him I had to check out the website and give my comments on its concept – that’s all I told him.

Anyways, his reaction was proof how attention span these days are 7 secs. Within 5 secs of entering this website, and exploring through the green powered syntax, he shut the browser and re-entered the website again. Upon the return of the green syntax with a black background, he shut down the browser and told me that my prof might have gotten a wrong link or the link has been sold to something else. He thought it was a viral site that was transparent and was working on my computer or tracking my activities etc. Boy, was he in for a surprise when I told him its art. I guess the artist had proved me on their objective that they wanted to give a hacker intend; to probe, to disturb and to disrupt.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z35b38CKc08

So Jodi.org is an interesting and fantasying website( this coming from me means I am really impressed) at first glance. At first glance, it seems far from a aesthetic piece with its black background, green or yellow syntax with low-res appearances and simple geometric shapes if any form of images do appear. There is lots of chaos going on. Words that you don’t understand but you have this impression immediately, no matter who you are, that they are codes. You recognise it and that itself ( like my friend ) puts you in the impression that its a ‘glitch’. But what’s worse is when you start browsing the website, you realize that you will receive weird feedback from the website after you click or move your mouse. Its constantly random and the website or the interface is always changing !!!!  Its a GLITCH, a hacker like GLITCH!!!!

Jodi.org (2)

Jodi, or jodi.org, is a collaboration of two internet artists: Joan Heemskerk  and Dirk Paesmans. Though their initial background is in video art and photography, they started to create original artworks for the internet in the mid 1992s, which eventually lead to this beautiful piece of art called Jodi.org. It gives you the feel of computerised information that goes behind our beautiful GI. The whole ‘code is art’ makes perfect sense when you use the interface because these syntax makes up the process that runs behind it but we never appreciate them until we come across a glitch. Here, there are no expectations once you start exploring so that itself is an artistic expression to me. The basis of no expectations is difficult to achieve but they did it brilliantly.

Glitch has a very negative connotation since the biblical times, where the expulsion from the garden of eden till the era where Facebook is able to reveal certain photos that supposedly non-public viewing. Its simple- its confusing, seemingly unprogressive and of course annoying! But let’s put these facts together, Steve Jobs used a glitch in the phone lines for his very first ( apparently) experiment and it was a factor of motivation to experiment. If it weren’t for Gergor Mendal’s discovery of a ‘glitch’ in green peas selection, we wouldn’t have discovered natural selection.

The idea of glitch art is very different here as it is not the linear process of exhibiting glitch though it seems as such. The glitch here is determined by the user and the ‘path’ he chooses to take, which is pretty much what a website does. But its not linear because the glitch is based on where you go to and it goes to become a world of glitches.

From my research, most artists actually avoid the reference or use to certain visual representations one of them being Bold3RR. But for this piece, the glitch art is clearly representative visually of the reality behind the glitch – syntax and computer generated codes.

“Every form of glitch, whether breaking a flow or designed to look like it breaks a flow, will eventually become a new fashion. That is fate.”

-Rosa Menkman, No. 04: The Glitch Moment(um), Rosa Menkman, pg8-9

One of the pointers that I relate strongly to is the ‘procedural programming described by Rosa Menkman in her article ” Glitch Moment(um), ” to reference series’ of computational steps that must be carried out in order for a program to reach a desired state.”. Once the ‘erratic’ behaviour is unknown, we either ignore the glitch or become oblivious to the glitch that might just be right in front of us. According to The Glitch Moment(um), Menkman touches on the points of noise and its existence only when in relation to social context and what it is not (refer to pg28). Hence it is not independent. In Jordi.org, we see this theory come to play when the code that we look at is gibberish to us but that is because we acknowledge its existence and believe that that’s not how its suppose to be. We already formulate the rules of what to expect and when it seems to deviate from our expectations, we acknowledge it but its a stigma acknowledgement.  However for Jodi, its a case, where we immediately are aware at first sight that it is a glitch, it becomes a simple failure bug report ( which I proved with the reaction with my best friend). But because it constantly changes, the behaviour becomes unknown and hence we will eventually ‘surrender’ and either become oblivious to the glitch or ignore it ( if you aren’t looking at it for fun and art).

However,  referencing back to the context from Menkman’s The Glitch Moment(um), Menkman did mention about Jordi.org exploiting the Liu-cool logic and creating the attraction point that sparks out the whole concept of Jordi.org. Liu Cool logic states that when the glitch is considered cool, it is still active, reflected upon and that it is still ‘withholding that idea’ (pg 44).  He considers cool as a constant state of flux. To think about it, perhaps it is something like a museum attraction. When the whole idea is trendy, it becomes an attraction ( perhaps even displayed in important hyped occasions). But the moment, it loses its coolness, it becomes history that we no longer adapt to me or try to imitate. Instead it goes to archive. Like mentioned in the theory, it is dependent on two types of mediums- technology, the artist and the interpretation by the viewer. Hence, when reflecting on this, I ask the question that bounds towards the question of retro glitch art. We have heard how art very often borrows elements from all aspects from the its ancestors. Why does this not work for art? Something I am actually very curious to explore.

Hence, it conclusion, I do feel that this art piece might seem like a simple glitch art, but overall its not cause its not that linear. The idea that glitches are always evolving will eventually make you uncomfortable or even frustrated. But thats the point; when glitch and art are evolving ,the main essence of glitch art, to think about it, is the ever changing nature of glitch and its art!

 


MY TWO CENTS: www.jodi.org

...

This one isn't for everyone...

Ummm... I guess the webmaster's name is Jodi, 
but who knows? In fact, who really knows just
what is going on in this site! Site? Can this
be called a "site?" This... place... is truly
a work of art. 

That is...

This site goes beyond all html constraints to
present the visitor with bizarre webtechnics
that make you wonder whether your browser is
going bonkers or whether you've had two too
many cyberdrinks. There are plenty of letters
on these pages, but don't expect too many words.

What a terrific use (err, abuse) of html!

Oh, by the way:
Blinkophobes Beware!

Anyway,
this place will cause more "View Source" buttons to
be pressed than emails reaching Socks Clinton.  You
gotta at least check out the code for the first page!

But be sure you take along some aspirin -- it'll
help with your hangover.

– J.Geoff Malta, jgeoff.com

Cheers

Jaysee