So, I uploaded some databent art to the portal today and the staff seem to think I applied some filters to an image or something and didn't deem it art. Today, I will discuss what databending is so that more people understand it.
Databending can be done with a lot of things...in fact it can be done with any file. The most rewarding in my opinion are audio files and image files. In this case, we're talking about image files. Image databending can be done in a lot of ways...all you need is some patience and the ability to think outside the box. I'm sure there are techniques that I'm unaware of...but the two programs I like to use for databending the most are Notepad++ (text databending) and Goldwave (sonification).
Text databending is the act of opening a file that isn't text (in this case, an image) in a text editing program such as Notepad++. Go ahead. Open up Notepad (not Notepad++, this is just to show you what an image looks like as text) and then go to File>Open. Select "All files" and then open up an image.
Now, this image obviously isn't represented in a way you're normally used to seeing. It's all seemingly random letters and characters that don't go together. I'm honestly not entirely sure how it works, but here's my understanding of how it works:
Each pixel's color is assigned to a hexadecimal number with six digits. Each hexadecimal number is composed of three channels ranging from 00 to FF. Red is #FF0000, Green is #00FF00, and Blue is #0000FF. Every single pixel has a six digit hexadecimal code assigned to it.
Now, the thing is, the text editor is trying to view this image as text. So it takes the hexadecimal numbers of the images along with the header of the file (the part that tells the computer what kind of a file it is, and how to carry it out), and turns all of the hexadecimal numbers into the characters you'd normally type that also are assigned those hexadecimal numbers.
For example: If I take a JPEG image of a 1x1 red pixel and open it up in Notepad, I get this. Most of this is the header, but the last characters (? âè¢%u0160ù"÷ÿÙ) are the ones that represent the color red. (#FF0000). If you wanted to do Blue (#00FF00), it would be "? ñÊ(¢¿q<ÃÿÙ".
Now, that's all pretty irrelevant unless you're interested in the intricacies of things like that like I am. What you need to do in order to databend is simply change some of the characters into something else. Obviously you're going to want to change the image by more than one pixel at a time...which is where Notepad++ comes in handy. Notepad++ has functions like "Replace all", where you can turn any entered phrase into another one, no matter how many times it's there. Images are enormous, and so a 600x600 image is some astronomical amount of pixels.
I'm going to take my NG userpage's display picture, here, and use the "Replace All" function to replace all of the "Â"s with "%"s. This yields this messy chunk of green, ugly databending. Replace all isn't good for single characters, more like sets of 3 or pairs of characters next to eachother.
Obviously, it takes a lot of time to get it right, but messing around with it and finding your own techniques is the true beauty of databending. Also trying different filetypes, like .tiff, .raw, .bmp and so on can yield some entirely different results with the same image.
Sonification is the same concept...but instead of text, you're looking at audible sound. My personal favorite sonification type is .tiff, because they create sound that's interesting to hear and interesting to edit. .tiff files are a lot less likely to become corrupt, too.
My sonification program of choice is Goldwave, although I've used Adobe Audition and I've heard old versions of Audacity will suffice.
Sonification is different than Text Editing because you don't have as much control. Instead a lot of it is less predictable and more trial and error than Text Editing. What I like to do is use effects like Flanger and EQ on sections to see what I can come up with. What I try to avoid are static-y looking areas. I'll go further in dept with it later.
This is an example of my sonification work, it was originally a painting of a pelican that a friend of mine made. I used a .tiff image, and I used a ton of different techniques like EQ, Flanger, a bit of Reverb, and then I used custom VSTs that I made for FL Studio like a Ringmod and a LoFi mod. It took a while, but it was fun.
http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/73cf 26dadf1b70da66b4bd2969c3a87e
And here is an example of text databending work that a friend of mine did. He used a .png image, and spent a long time on it.
http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/45fb 2c2ab75eb6ffaf74aa47007ce79a
Here's one I did playing around with quality of JPG and things like that. The red channel was the least prominent channel when I started, and so it was that much harder to make it like this.
http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/22c6 97bdb9b77bd3904a749329eeb0ea
I know a lot of people don't really understand or enjoy databending, but I think it's one of the most interesting artforms out there and I believe it should be much more well known. It should be accepted as a real artform and not just brushed off for "Filter Rape" or something when it clearly isn't.
