April 2012
40 posts
March 2012
35 posts
I don’t have much experience databending video, but hope to fix that soon. From a quick look around the net, the processes are the same as databending any other file type.
So far I’ve dabbled with importing Cinepak encoded .AVI files in Audactiy (see Antonio Roberts), and databending h.264 encoded .MOV files with HexEdit.
I’ve never tried datamoshing, but go ahead and plug that into the search bar and you’re bound to find a plentitude of resources, as with “databending video”.
Image formats have certain modes: RGB, CMYK, Grayscale, Indexed, Bitmap, etc. When you create an animated GIF (or any GIF for that matter) the palette must be restricted to 256 colors. Given that most standard displays are capable of a color depth of 24bit (16.7 million colors), certain interpolation or dithering techniques must be employed to establish an optimal color palette (if one is not already chosen) and the arrangement of pixels to approximate tones that are not in the palette.
Daniel Temkin’s Dither Studies, inspired by Corey Arcangel’s Photoshop Gradient Demonstrations and the work of Sol LeWitt, are made by dithering low resolution gradients or colors using “incompatible” color palettes or by restricting the palette to 2-4 colors. My own explorations of dithering are directly inspired by Daniel’s work and indirectly informed by Conway’s Game of Life, Nam June Paik’s work with video feedback, Toshimaru Nakamura’s no-input mixer work, and recursive/iterative re-processing (Fractals and Chaotic Models).
My tool of choice is the open source GIMP. In GIMP, I’m able to create color palettes and use them to convert images to index mode. To re-index, I must convert back to RGB (bitmap) and this is where I can select a different palette and re-index.
On February 29th, Leap Day, YOTG has reached 1000 followers! Thank you all for an amazing start to this year-long project. Knowing that there’s an audience out there makes producing the work featured on YOTG all the more rewarding. Here’s to an exciting year ahead, and here’s to you!
Thanks!
—Phil
February 2012
36 posts
Here is a list of programs used in the creation of the works on YOTG. I tend to use multiple programs and a collection of tools depending on the artifact/noise/error/glitch/process being explored:
MAC: Textedit, Hex Fiend, GIMP (though you could use just about any program that can open/save/export an image file), Preview, Canon Digital Photo Professional, iMovie, Audacity, Quicktime 7 Pro, VLC, Firefox and Safari, screen capture in OSX.
PC: Notepad, HxD (Hex editor), GIMP, Quicktime 7 Pro, VLC, Chrome, Canon Digital Photo Professional, Pinnacle Studio 14, Audacity.
Hardware: Dazzle Video Capture Device (PC only it seems), Panasonic DVD Player, Olympus C-840 1.2MP camera, Kodack DC 215, 210, 280, and 240 digital cameras, Canon G5, Canon EOS Digital Rebel, Tascam DR-40, Mackie 1202 VLZ.
This list is probably missing a few things, and will surely grow. There is a possibility I’ll put together a book at the end of the project, documenting all the works and offering details about the techniques and tools involved.