Glitches_In_Motion :: 07 :: Seth Nemec

November 4, 2010 – 9:28 am

Seth Nemec produces wonderfully lo-fi videos utilizing old composite video hardware and video feedback to produce surreal, fragmented dreamscapes.

Recognizable forms including human figures, satellites, and buildings provide a reference to reality that is repeatedly torn apart and rebuilt by the ebb and flow of feedback. Cotton candy color schemes add a softness to the rough edges of the visuals. Heavy use of repetition, particularly in Medio Mutante’s cassette demo series, helps drive a hypnotic visual rhythm that plays well with the audio.

Seth also builds and modifies his own synthesizers, which he performs with Medio Mutante.

New Video: BW Storm

October 16, 2010 – 11:28 am

A new track from the Vaudeo Signal sessions – by Ben Baker-Smith and Evan Kühl.

GLI.TC/H events this week/end

September 27, 2010 – 9:51 am

The GLI.TC/H festival is this week!

Evan Kühl and I have a video in the Friday night screenings, 8-9pm at Transistor (5045 N Clark St), and are performing live on Saturday night between 8-10pm at the Nightingale Theater (1084 N Milwaukee Ave). Come check out the shows!

We will have a DVD for sale (cheap) which is the culmination of a lot of recent work, so come find me if you’re interested (you can also e-mail if you can’t make the show).

Events are happening Wednesday (September 29) – Sunday (October 3), a full schedule can be found on the official website: http://gli.tc/h

glitchNES v0.2 released

September 23, 2010 – 1:50 pm

Don Miller, aka NO CARRIER, has just released a new, updated version of glitchNES. This is very exciting! For those not familiar with glitchNES, here’s a brief introduction.

glitchNES is a custom-built Nintendo ROM that uses software tricks to create visual effects reminiscent of hardware glitches. Everyone who ever owned or played an original NES system should recognize these patterns, usually indicating that you need to hit the reset button and/or blow in the cartridge. Instead of remaining static, glitchNES encourages live manipulation of the imagery using a keyboard or external controller. Modifiable parameters include direction of movement, color, pattern, speed, and more.

Here are a few of my past experiments with v0.1.

Version 0.1 was a good start, but the concept is much more fully realized in v0.2. In particular, the live performance capability has been greatly increased. This was always the most exciting aspect of glitchNES to me, ever since I caught a video of Don Miller generating live visuals for a really crunchy electronica show, and I’m glad to see that he has continued developing with this in mind.

Version 0.2 doubles the number of controls (it now requires 2 controllers if you aren’t using the qwerty keyboard), and adds more graphics banks which can be swapped on the fly. There is also a tap tempo function that allows for some rhythmic fluctuation of the imagery. As with v0.1, the graphics banks may be edited using a tile editor to customize the resulting visuals. While I recommend this if you are planning to use glitchNES for a live show, I had a lot of fun just playing with the default banks that come pre-loaded.

Hardcore NES hackers can even buy some specialized hardware and create their own physical NES cartridge for use in an original system (works for NTSC anyhow). Everything you need for this process can be found at RetroZone.

glitchNES is available for free download here. After downloading, you need to run the compile.bat file to generate the ROM (glitchnes.nes). In order to use the ROM you will need to load it into an NES emulator. I recommend Nestopia or RockNES.

Enjoy!

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Don Miller will be leading a short workshop on NES hacking as part of the GLI.TC/H festival in Chicago. This will be held at the Nightingale Theater on Saturday, October 2nd @ 5pm. I will be performing a live set alongside Evan Kühl at the same venue a few hours later. A full schedule and further details can be found at http://gli.tc/h

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This was originally posted to Vague Terrain. It is shared under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license.

PdLANParty – Easy Pure Data Networking

September 14, 2010 – 2:25 pm

PdLANParty is a Python script that facilitates easy connections between multiple computers and pure data patches on a local network (wireless or LAN). It was written by Chris McCormick with some help from the RjDj folks.

Pd-extended already includes some objects that facilitate communication over a network – [netsend] and [netreceive], along with some others – but PdLANParty has the potential for increased flexibility and ease of use. For one, users don’t need to acquire and share their IP addresses and/or port numbers in order to connect with one another. Instead, anyone on the network with the [lanparty] object in an active patch is immediately able to communicate (send / receive data) with everyone else who has an active [lanparty] object.

Secondly, you can use the right inlet and outlet to send UDP data separately from other messages, thus eliminating the need for multiple network-related objects and further IP / port coordination. Chris recommends this method for sending timing data and other information which can handle some measure of lossyness (I’m assuming this is due to the nature of UDP).

Last but not least is the ability to customize the script to fit your particular needs. This can allow you to get into more complicated message routing than the default one-to-all. You will need some knowledge of the Python programming language in order to do this, but there is some information to guide you on the project page.

I’ve been meaning to run some meaningful tests and experiments with this for a while now, but just haven’t found the time. So, unfortunately I am recommending this to you without having done much in the way of quality control. That said, Chris is a very respected member of the Pd development community, and I’m confident that the code is in good working order.

If anyone has used PdLANParty, or plans to, drop me a line at bitsynthesis(at)gmail(dot)com. I’m interested to hear what sorts of group projects and performances are utilizing Pd over a network.

GLI.TC/H bumpers

September 10, 2010 – 12:39 pm

Here are a couple of bumpers I made for the upcoming GLI.TC/H show. I wasn’t actually aware of the term “bumper” until the organizers asked for them, in other circles they would be called “advertising spots” but I’m happy to leave that tag behind. The audio tracks were taken from Evan Kuhl’s fralix-nerb album.

Evan and myself will be screening a video and performing live on October 1st or 2nd, and GlitchBot will be getting some attention on the festival webpage. I’ll post more info as I get it.

Video Generating Devices from Critter and Guitari

September 2, 2010 – 9:38 am

Critter and Guitari are hardware hackers, artists, and musicians from Philadelphia, PA. Like some other similar folks (Karl Klomp and Dewanatron come to mind) they have begun offering some of their custom creations for sale.

Of interest to me are the visual tools they have created, including the Television Oscilloscope and Cellular Automata Video Synthesizer Kit.

I’m inclined to think of these as toys or works of art rather than serious visualization tools, but whatever you call them they certainly are cool.

Glitches_In_Motion :: 06 :: Pomp & Clout

August 15, 2010 – 3:43 pm

Pomp & Clout are responsible for the video for Rusko’s new single Woo Boost. This video is interesting primarily for its use of analog video effects and glitches, as most glitch videos that make it into the mainstream are of the datamoshing variety (strictly digital). Given that Rusko has worked with top-name pop acts including M.I.A., Rihanna, T.I., and Brittany Spears, I’d say this qualifies as mainstream.

The video is pretty outrageous, keeping with a hipster, retro, in-your-face attitude. The chaos is very fun, and the use of keying and layers helps maintain an anchor of focus in the midst of it all (in the forms of Rusko and his female companion).

The plot and imagery don’t develop much after the first 30 seconds, but it’s a delightfully unabashed embrace of analog glitch aesthetics (I definitely appreciated the old-school VHS blue-screen at the end).

I also really enjoyed the video for Electrical Way by Zoos of Berlin. You can find it on the Pomp & Clout website.

Bit_Synthesis Now On Twitter

August 13, 2010 – 9:28 am

So the day has come: Bit_Synthesis has a Twitter account.

The account will be maintained by longtime friends, artists, and collaborators Jackie Bousek and Georgie Schaefer – as well as myself.

Tune in for yet another barrage of media and information.

Stallio Full Interview

August 9, 2010 – 5:37 pm

Stallio is as old-school as flickr-using glitch artists come. He started posting databends on flickr only a few months after the site got its start back in 2004, and he’s still going strong today. Many glitch-related image pools list him as one of the top contributing members, and his photostream contains an overwhelming amount of work.

Just as significantly, he has been (and continues to be) a strong member of the glitch-making community. The tutorials on his site have inspired and educated many newcomers. When I first started experimenting with glitches I came across these tutorials via flickr and they opened up new worlds of possibility.

I interviewed Stallio for my Flickr Glitch Artists post on Vague Terrain. Here’s the interview in full, un-edited.

Me: How do you first develop and explore an idea/concept?

Stallio: glitch projects are usually about solving some kind of puzzle: how to bend a certain type of file, how to get the effect i want, how to get it to glitch in the right place, how to get the best colors, etc. source material is usually chosen because the form is right for some reason, but sometimes i will want to glitch a certain type of subject matter.

Me: What methods, mediums, and tools do you use?

Stallio: i’ll use any software i can figure out how to databend with. mostly i use hex editors, wav editors, and notepad. which tools i use depend on what kind of effect i’m going for.

Me: What are some of your influences? Where do you find inspiration?

Stallio: if i see that others have gotten an interesting effect then i may be inspired to figure out how they did it and try to duplicate that effect. but beyond that it’s hard to discuss “inspiration” for databending considering that so much of it is just trial and error until something interesting happens.

Me: Do you see flickr as a community, or simply a platform on which to display your work?

Stallio: it’s a bit of both. i definitely would have fewer fans and wouldn’t have “met” as many other glitch artists if not for the flickr pools.

Me: What are the pros and cons of displaying work on flickr?

Stallio: though there are things i don’t like about flickr, i can’t think of anything i don’t like about hosting my images there right now. it’s easy to work with, automatically resizes my work to a few standard sizes, and i can post my work to the pools where i know it’ll be seen by an appreciative audience.

Me: Besides flickr, where else do you display/exhibit your work?

Stallio: i have my own web site, and have shown my work in a couple galleries.

Me: What display environments and mediums would you like to explore in the future?

Stallio: i’ve been trying to move away from purely abstract glitch to introduce more traditional illustration aspects, for example doing illustrations and using glitches for textures/fills.