Art glitch

This assignment allows you to:

Explore a software interface created by others to render artistic results of your own. Specifically, you will create a self- portrait. Many artists throughout history have created self-portraits, so you are following a long-established practice! The catch is that you will make your self- portrait a piece of visual Glitch art.

Introduction:

You will explore direct databending of an image(.jpg) by manipulating the image code directly as a text image.

This assignment has TWO parts:

• Making a glitched self portrait as a .jpg
• Documenting your process through a written artist’s statement that includes screenshots.

Glitch art, according to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glitch_art), is the “aestheticization of digital or analog errors”. I encourage you to check out some of the art featured on the Wikipedia page for a historical and artistic perspective on Glitch art.

To create your Glitch self-portrait, you will use the following method:

PART 1:

First you will need a text editor like TextEdit(Mac), Atom (PC/Mac) NotePad++, WordPad(Windows).

• Shoot a NEW head and shoulder portrait of yourself looking at the camera, with a neutral background behind you (e.g. like a mugshot or your school I.D. photo) in .jpg format (NOT the iPhone HEIC default format –see this LINK on how to change this setting in iPhone)
• Have this self portrait image (.jpg) loaded onto your computer.
• Make a copy of this image (this is important because you may corrupt/destroy the image through the processing of glitching the image)

• Open the copied .jpg using the text editor. The document will look like a long page of random seeming numbers, letters & symbols. Like this:
  • 

• Scroll down about ¼ down the page (this avoids formatting commands in the header that are needed to define the image) and select a section to cut, copy.
  • You can scroll down further and paste (perhaps multiple times!) the section. You can move sections around.
  • You can find and replace letters, numbers or symbols with other characters or words… using the Edit-> Find and Replace command.

• After you have done an assortment ( start with just a few changes at first) of the above mentioned manipulations,take a screenshot of an example of what you changed.
• Save the file as a .txt file.
• If you are on Windows, I highly recommend NotePad++, as you don’t need to save the file as a .txt file, you can just save it as the original .jpg, which is much more likely to succeed in this tricky part of the project.

• In the finder, change the file extension from .txt to .jpg (ignore the warnings).
  • If you don’t see file extensions in Windows 10, see this link for how to show them.
  • If you don’t see file extensions in Mac OS, see this link for yow to show them.
• Open the manipulated file as a photo and see what it looks like.
• Either keep this version or repeat the above steps to further manipulate your portrait.

• If your image won’t open as a .jpg, then you have “broken” the file and need to back and start over with a new copy of the original portrait.
  • Don’t be discouraged if this happens (that’s why you made a back-up copy of or portrait file).
  • Make sure you have gone down far enough in the .txt file to avoid the header (1/4 of the way down or more).

To turn in this project, you will submit self-portrait as .jpg files (NO larger than 2 MB in size!!) to the D2L Dropbox for this activity.

Use the following naming conventions:

Mod8_lastname_firstname.jpg

PART 2

You MUST submit:

• A Word/PDF document listing the method you used and a include a brief description with the title of your work.
• Artist’s statement about your piece in a Word document. Include a summary of your processesyou used to manipulate the image through changing the ASCII text. What surprised you about your process? Additionally, Answer the question “How does the effect of a glitch relate to your self-portrait and the image of yourself as represented through technology (specifically digital photography)?”
• Annotated screenshots of some of the changes you made of the code in the text editor AND a screenshot of your glitched self portrait. Use Preview(Mac) or Greenshot (free for Windows)
• Insert the screenshots like this INTO your Word/PDF file ABOVE your artist’s statement:
• • 

• Name your Word/PDF file “Mod8_lastname_firstname.docx”
• SUBMIT BOTH your glitched self portrait as a .jpg fileLESS than 2 MB in size ( 5% deducted if the file is larger than 2 MB) ! AND your Word/PDF file to the Mod 8 Assignment folder.
  • You can resize the image by importing into Photoshop and go to top menu Image-> Image Size and make it smaller until the MBs listed are < 2MB- then exporting the resized image for upload to D2L