Technology can fail in such aesthetically pleasing fashions. The first time I was able to capture one such malfunction was finding the PSP billboard on Houston crashed. The next time I was struck by a failing billboard was when I shot the LED ad at the subway entrance at 22nd and Broadway.

In the Pixels Glitch post on this site I documented glitches closer to home. At that time I was simply capturing video of malfunctions I’d been seeing on my laptop. It immediately went from there to finding unexpected results while post processing the material. Today I’ve stepped into intentionally forcing glitches using my own work as fodder.

The two images above were created by tweaking an original image in OS X’s TextEdit app. The original is here on the right.

All of the databending documentation I could find pertains to processes playing out on Windows machines. This info was a good enough starting point for me, but it required a bit of trial and error on my part trying to produce similar effects on a Mac. Let me quickly describe the process here, so it might inform others when approaching this type of workflow in OS X.

Starting with a JPG I shot, I converted the file to a bitmap. Apparently it’s too easy to break a file when starting from a JPG. The bitmap image was then opened in TextEdit. Using the find and replace feature in TextEdit I replaced a couple strings in the document. For the first image above I replaced the string, “1%” with “raymond”. In the second image, I replaced the string, “*0″ again with the string “raymond”. Heh. Not too inventive there, but I kind of like how the image is personalized on such a low level. The images were then saved again as BMPs, then converted to JPGs for presentation here and elsewhere.

Pretty basic right?

My next step will be creating databent videos, with the end result being incorporation into visuals at events. The last time around it was the sourced glitch videos I used which quickly became the easiest fodder to work with. I’m looking forward to creating video clips composed from haphazard processes that are then taken into the field to be further mutated in as yet unforeseen ways.