glitch.joedoe.dev
A workshop for breaking images, video and text on purpose
A glitch is the error you can see: the JPG that only half downloads, the worn-out tape, the video that sticks when the shot changes. Here are the tools to cause them, and the sites that taught me how.
The tools
Workshop
A photo, a video or your camera and seven ways to break them: JPG bytes, slices, pixel sorting, channels, 3-bit, Rutt-Etra and VHS.
Datamosh
Real datamoshing: two clips compressed as video, the second without its keyframe, so its motion drags the first along.
Slit-scan
Every row of the picture from a different moment. On camera, people stretch, bend and melt.
Text
Text with zalgo, blocks, lookalike letters, mojibake and other disasters, ready to paste anywhere.
Archive
The glitch sites I've been keeping, sorted and explained, each with its own line.
Guide
What databending is and how to break files by hand: hex editor, Audacity, the WordPad effect and datamoshing.
From the archive
- jpg-glitchsnorpey's classic: changes a JPG's bytes with three sliders (amount, seed, iterations) and you watch it break instantly.
- Rutt-Etra-IzerFelix Turner rebuilds the 1972 Rutt/Etra synth in WebGL: the image as lines rising with the light, in 3D.
- Bitmap sorterlarixk's pixel sorter: sorts the image's pixels and you watch it melt into streaks.
- Databending primer, part 1: the WordPad effectThe stAllio! primer that started it all for many: open an image in WordPad, save it and see what happens.
- NO CARRIERDon Miller's site: glitchNES and other NES cartridges made to cause glitches live, plus his installations.
- Mosh-Pro (antes PhotoMosh)Airtight's PhotoMosh, now Mosh-Pro: dozens of effects for photos, video and camera, exporting to GIF and video.