j.t. hybridity

Stereograms and Autostereograms

Stereograms are any kind of image that can be viewed with enhanced depth using stereoscopic vision. They are usually two visually similar 2D images set side by side horizontally and invite the viewer to perceive depth between them, allowing the third 3D image to emerge.

In the past, specialized stereoscopic equipment was required to view these images, but there are ways to view them using just human eyes. Called freeviewing, this can be accomplished by either defocusing your eyes or crossing them until the third image appears. Using one or the other can "flip" the perception of depth around (e.g. things that are pushed further in the one video will now be pushed closer in the other).

Here is an interactive stereogram online, using one of Salvador Dali's paintings The Chair: http://www.mcarts.com/theAge/dali.htm

Autostereograms, also called "magic eye pictures", are more commonly found stereograms, as they are composed of a single 2D image with a seemingly repeated visual pattern that when viewed with perceived depth yields a 3D image. The "auto" part of the name means that the process is done automatically, without requiring a stereoscope to view.

Autostereograms can also be videos, such as the music video "Black is Good" by Young Rival:

Above is the defocusing version, below is the cross-eyed version:

"Stereoscopy." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 17 Oct. 2016. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereoscopy>.

Norio Nagano. シンゴジラ in 3D. Digital image. Instagram. N.p., 3 Sept. 2016. Web. 17 Oct. 2016. <https://www.instagram.com/p/BJ6lh95gj5V/>.

"Stereoscopic Vision : Dali." Stereoscopic Vision : Dali. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Oct. 2016. <http://www.mcarts.com/theAge/dali.htm>.

Priester, Gary W. Lighthouse. Digital image. BrainBashers. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Oct. 2016. <https://www.brainbashers.com/showstereo.asp?29>.

Black Is Good. Perf. Young Rival. Young Rival - Black Is Good [Official] (Autostereogram Video). YouTube, 27 Jan. 2014. Web. 17 Oct. 2016. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AKtp3XHn38>.

Black Is Good. Perf. Young Rival. Young Rival - Black Is Good (Autostereogram Video: Crossed-Eye Version). YouTube, 27 Jan. 2014. Web. 17 Oct. 2016. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUO5al57-1s>.

Wigglegram

Animated images that simulate 3D vision and is done by looping a few frames that are slightly shifted from the two points of a viewer's eyes. This is a type of pseudo-stereoscopy that does not use separate images for each eye.

Ofnuts. Flower Wigglegram. Digital image. Pixls.us. N.p., 3 July 2016. Web. 13 Oct. 2016. <https://discuss.pixls.us/t/flower-wigglegram/1762>.

Datamoshing

The act of using compression artifacts to intentionally visually corrupt digital video or animated GIFs. This is the opposite of minimally using compression artifacts in order to acquire lossy-compressed images for smaller file sizes while maintaining most of its visual integrity.

Poem to Mr Compression. Dir. Rosa Menkman. Poem to Mr Compression // WMV Lowquality, Datamoshed. YouTube, 19 July 2016. Web. 17 Oct. 2016. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Af2qUZ9KjXE>.

Jog Image Sequence

An image sequence is a series of frames containing visual information. In terms of glitch art, this can be "jogged" or disrupted to create digital destruction. One process is utilizing I-frames and P-frames of a video to create glitched effects: I-frames contain visual information whereas P-frames contain relative differences between frames, and changing/removing some of these frames result in "blending effects".

Pink Dot. Dir. Takeshi Murata. TAKESHI MURATA Pink Dot 2007. YouTube, 24 Aug. 2010. Web. 6 Oct. 2016. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZkY6zFbwgQ>.

Cinemagraph

A digital image is a photograph that appears to be static, but instead contains subtle and/or repetitive movement. Commonly associated with fashion after the term was coined after Kevin Burg and Jamie Beck, two photographers.

Jason Winter. Digital image. CINEMAGRAPHS: THE LATEST EVOLUTION OF THE ANIMATED GIF. N.p., 16 May 2016. Web. 13 Oct. 2016. <http://blog.invisionapp.com/cinemagraphs/>.

I've settled with a basic idea for Project 2. Using some prerecorded footage I wanted to try the Overlay effect again from this datamoshing tutorial. Essentially it involves combining two video clips into one by keeping a single I-frame at the start and removing the rest throughout the clip. From what I learned, I-frames are like key frames, and the other type, P-frames, are the in-between frames. So after removing the rest of the I-frames we are left with only P-frames, and the blending effect follows.

Both clips are from the same street and highway entrance/exit, but the notable difference is day and night. I wanted to see how the clips blend together and then got some interesting visuals. The audio is nothing special though, just cars humming by.

The quality after upload is really terrible, so here is a Google Drive link for a more HD version: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1w16GJvor0SQUd0U2IxTFpZbXc/view?usp=sharing

It looks wicked, really. However, the process is time-consuming. I needed to convert the MP4 to an uncompressed AVI format, then after removing the I-frames, convert it back to MP4 so it is a more portable and viewable format; with a high resolution of 1440p, it's not hard to imagine how tedious it is. In the future, I would clip the videos so they are more manageable.

It would be cool to do a day-and-night like here, experimenting with sunrise and sunset. If time permits that's worth looking into. Otherwise using footage from different types of roads should provide enough difference to create the overlay effect. There's also the bloom effect mentioned in the tutorial, I'll play around with that next. So many factors to experiment with!

These videos from The Tunnel's YouTube channel gave me an idea:

The combination of road trip footage with a vaporwave track inspires me to create a datamoshed video for Project 2. I recently purchased a dash cam due to the increasing amount of vehicle accidents in order to ensure that I have proper evidence of whatever events may occur during a drive.

Not too long ago, I also watched The Blair Witch Project (1999) and it amazes me how it brought about the art of found footage to Hollywood cinema.

The video portion could be filmed using my dash cam. It can support video footage up to 1440p so pretty high definition. One disadvantage of using a dash cam is that unlike a regular video camera I can't really bring many varieties of camera angles. A workaround for this though is to add variety by dismounting the dash cam and moving it around while still recording. This would require me to have another person drive the car - I wouldn't want to be fiddling around with the dash cam mid-drive!

Some video footage ideas I've came up with:

Driving down a highway (eg. Highway 7 in KW)
Stuck on a highway (probably Highway 7 during rush hour)
Driving down a road surrounded by farmland (eg. near St. Jacob's or one of the roads leading to Guelph?)

As for the audio, it could be one of these:

Audio attached to the video. That way they can be datamoshed along with the video. Could be interesting to have a combination of dialogue, music from the radio, or sounds from my phone.
Audio prerecorded. I could easily insert the audio into the video and retake as needed, but it takes away from the purity of the found footage. It can be datamoshed separately which could lead to interesting results.
Audio sampled and remixed from other sources, à la vaporwave. This could be as simple as lifting a track from elsewhere (but not advisory) or as difficult as myself creating one from scratch.
What if I took an image and tried to play it as an audio track? It may end up as just noise, but worth some experimenting.

Edit: After chatting with the instructor, more audio to consider in the car could be opening windows to hear the traffic, wind, etc. Those could be interesting elements to add. As for copyrighted music, the audio probably has to become completely unrecognizable, so probably not worth it. I think going for the authentic audio is a good idea, just need to find a way to datamosh so that audio is also affected.

V A P O R Memories. Dir. The Tunnel. YouTube. N.p., 4 July 2016. Web. 5 Oct. 2016. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eNEMF98Xb8>.

V A P O R Memories 2. Dir. The Tunnel. YouTube. N.p., 22 July 2016. Web. 5 Oct. 2016. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYmstwWc66o>.

Datamoshing (Databending)

Log into Windows
Open Audacity
Import MP4 as raw data, encoding A-LAW
Export as MP4
Repeat steps 3-4 two more times

Noticed that the glitch art GIF/video tutorial led to a subreddit specializing in breaking anime GIFs and decided to look around.

This one is so mesmerizing. Using Motoko's invisibility sequence from the movie "Ghost in the Shell" combined with datamoshing almost makes the artifacts disappear, until they slowly and eventually shift into the man's face in the first frame. It also helps that this is one of my favourite films of all time.

Jimlast3. Ghost in the Shell. Digital image. Reddit. N.p., 30 Aug. 2014. Web. 3 Oct. 2016. <https://www.reddit.com/r/brokenanimegifs/comments/2ezrmf/ghost_in_the_shell/>.

Log into Windows
Open MP4 in Frhed
Select row 0x24680
Replace all following occurrences of "5" with "0"

Log into Windows
Follow this guide to prep Headbang and Sway GIFs into AVI
Use Overlay technique with Headbang first and Sway second
Export as GIF

Reference: https://www.reddit.com/r/brokenanimegifs/wiki/tutorial

Log into Windows
Open Audacity
Import BMP as raw data, encoding A-LAW
Select majority of track
Effect > Phaser
Select majority of track
Effect > Echo (Delay: 2, Decay Factor: 0.5)
Select majority of track
Effect > Reverb
Select majority of track
Effect > Amplify (Amplification: -3)
Export as BMP

Reference: http://datamoshing.com/2016/06/15/how-to-glitch-images-using-audio-editing-software/

Image source:

Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. Konami: Kojima Productions, 2008. Computer software, video game.

Log into Windows
Open Audacity
Import BMP as raw data, encoding A-LAW
Select majority of track
Effect > Echo (Delay: 5 seconds, Decay factor: 0.5)
Export as BMP

Reference: http://datamoshing.com/2016/06/15/how-to-glitch-images-using-audio-editing-software/

Image source:

Tales of Zestiria. Bandai Namco Entertainment: Bandai Namco Studios, 2015. Computer software, video game.

Log into Windows
Open Audacity
Import BMP as raw data, encoding U-LAW
Select majority of track
Effect > Reverb
Select first half of track
Effect > Fade In
Select second half of track
Effect > Fade Out
Export as BMP

Reference: http://datamoshing.com/2016/06/15/how-to-glitch-images-using-audio-editing-software/

Image source:

Tales of Zestiria. Bandai Namco Entertainment: Bandai Namco Studios, 2015. Computer software, video game.

Log into Windows
Open Audacity
Import BMP as raw data, encoding U-LAW
Select second half of track
Effect > Echo
Select majority of track
Effect > Invert
Select a different majority of track
Effect > Wahwah
Export as BMP

Reference: http://datamoshing.com/2016/06/15/how-to-glitch-images-using-audio-editing-software/