Glitch Art Glossary
Comprehensive glossary of glitch art terminology. From algorithmic art to VHS effects, learn the language of digital corruption.
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A
Abstract Glitch
Abstract Glitch is a type of glitch art that emphasizes abstract forms and visual aesthetics. It is fundamentally connected to the concept of visual noise,...
Algorithmic Art
Art created through the use of algorithms and computational processes. This approach to artistic creation encompasses techniques like pixel sorting, where...
Ambient Music
A genre of music that emphasizes tone and atmosphere over traditional musical structure or rhythm, often used to create a calming or atmospheric effect.
Analog Distortion
Distortion created through analog means, commonly observed in video synthesizer art.
Artificial Intelligence Art
Art created with the assistance of artificial intelligence, often involving machine learning algorithms to generate new forms of visual, auditory, or...
Audio Glitch
Intentional audio errors, a feature in Glitch Music.
Audio Visualization
The process of converting audio signals into visual representations, often used in music production and performance to enhance the listener's experience.
Augmented Reality Art
Art that combines real-world environments with computer-generated sensory inputs, creating an enhanced or augmented experience.
B
Bent Sound
Audio glitches produced through circuit bending, representing a fundamental component of glitch music composition and production.
Bit Crushing
A digital audio effect that reduces the bit depth of a sound, creating a distorted, lo-fi sound characteristic.
Bitrate Reduction
The process of reducing the number of bits used in digital audio or video encoding, which can result in lower quality and altered aesthetic characteristics.
C
Chiptune
Emulates early video game sounds, related to 8-bit glitch art.
Circuit Bending
Customizing electronic device circuits to create new instruments, often used in glitch music.
Circuit Sculpture
A form of electronic art where circuits are arranged in aesthetically pleasing or meaningful ways, often exposing the components as part of the design.
Codec Error
Errors that occur during the encoding or decoding process of digital media. This phenomenon is closely related to digital corruption, where the transformation...
Color Banding
A visual artifact in digital images where smooth color gradients are represented as distinct, visible bands instead of seamless transitions, typically...
Compression Artifact
Data loss glitches that occur due to compression, commonly observed in JPEG degradation.
Creative Coding
The practice of using programming languages to create art, music, and interactive installations, emphasizing creativity and experimentation.
Cyberpunk Aesthetics
A visual style connected to cyberpunk fiction that combines futuristic and dystopian imagery with cutting-edge technology and an underlying spirit of defiance.
D
Data Bending
An artistic technique involving the manipulation of digital data of media files to create distorted or glitchy effects. This approach involves directly...
Data Moshing
A technique that manipulates data compression artifacts, frequently employed alongside Pixel Sorting as a method in Glitch Art creation.
Digital Collage
Collage with digital images, often includes Glitch Art techniques.
Digital Corruption
Corrupting digital data for glitch effects, a technique used in Glitch Photography.
Digital Decay
The gradual degradation of digital files and media over time, leading to loss of data or quality, often used artistically to evoke a sense of aging or...
Digital Painting
An artistic work created using digital tools such as a computer, a digitizing tablet, and software, simulating traditional painting mediums.
Distortion Effect
Effects that distort audio/visuals, used in Glitch Music and VHS Glitch. Distortion effects are techniques employed to deliberately alter or degrade sound and...
Dithering
A digital technique used to create the illusion of color depth in images with limited color palettes, often seen in retro video games and pixel art.
Dynamic Range Compression
An audio process that reduces the volume of loud sounds or amplifies quiet sounds, creating a more consistent volume level.
E
Electroacoustic Music
Music that incorporates acoustic sounds and electronic processing, often exploring the interaction between live musicians and electronic sound sources.
Electronic Disturbance
Using media to disrupt, often seen in politically motivated glitch art. Electronic disturbance refers to the practice of employing digital media as a tool for...
Electronic Music
A genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, and circuitry-based music technology.
Error Aesthetics
Aestheticization of digital and analog errors in art, which serves as a central philosophy in glitch art. This concept involves transforming technological...
Experimental Animation
Animation with unconventional techniques, includes Glitch Video.
F
Feedback Loop
Outputs fed back as inputs, used in Audio Glitch and Video Synthesizer art.
Fractal Art
A form of algorithmic art created by calculating fractal objects and representing the calculation results as still images, animations, or music.
Frequency Modulation
A technique for encoding information into a carrier wave by varying its instantaneous frequency, commonly employed in sound synthesis and radio transmission...
G
Generative Art
Art that is autonomously created by algorithms. This term is closely connected to algorithmic art, where computational systems generate visual or artistic...
Glitch
A digital or analog error, typically aesthetic in Glitch Art. Often involves techniques like Data Moshing and Pixel Sorting.
Glitch Aesthetic
The style characteristic of glitches, central to glitch art. Glitch aesthetic represents the visual and artistic qualities that emerge from digital errors and...
Glitch Art Software
Software designed for creating glitch art, used in techniques like pixel sorting.
Glitch Design: Digital Errors in Graphic Design
Glitch design applies intentional digital errors to graphic design, branding, and web layouts. Learn the principles, tools, and techniques behind the aesthetic.
Glitch Hop
Glitch hop fuses stuttering digital aesthetics with hip-hop rhythms and heavy bass. Artists include Tipper, Buku, and Gramatik.
Glitch Literature
A literary genre that incorporates elements of glitch art, using disrupted or corrupted text to create an unconventional narrative experience.
Glitch Music
An electronic genre built on clicks, cuts, and digital artifacts. See our full guide for artists, albums, subgenres, and production techniques.
Glitch Painting: Digital Errors Meet Traditional Media
Glitch painting recreates digital artifacts — pixel fragmentation, RGB splits, data corruption — using paint, ink, or mixed media on canvas and paper.
Glitch Photography
Creating glitch effects in photography, similar to Digital Corruption. This technique involves intentionally producing visual distortions and artifacts that...
Glitch Scripting
The practice of writing code to intentionally introduce glitches or errors into digital media, creating unique aesthetic effects. This technique involves...
Glitch Text
Text altered to appear corrupted, often using methods like Data Moshing.
Glitch Video
Video incorporating glitch effects, related to VHS Glitch. This term describes visual content that deliberately employs glitch aesthetics - digital artifacts,...
H
Haptic Technology
Technology that recreates the sense of touch by applying forces, vibrations, or motions to the user, often used in virtual reality applications.
Hardware Hacking
Modifying hardware for art, related to Circuit Bending.
Harsh Noise Wall
A genre of noise music characterized by a dense, monolithic wall of sound, creating an immersive and often overwhelming auditory experience.
Hyperrealism
An artistic style resembling high-resolution photography that emphasizes incredible detail and realism, often challenging the viewer's perception of reality.
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Image Distortion
The alteration of an image's appearance, often through digital manipulation, resulting in a warped or surreal representation.
Immersive Art
Art that surrounds and involves the viewer, creating a sense of being inside or part of the artwork, often using multimedia and interactive elements.
Interactive Installation
An art form that involves viewer participation and engagement. It can incorporate real-time glitch art, where technological errors are transformed into...
Interactive Media
Media that allows active participation or interaction from its audience, often involving digital technologies.
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Lo-Fi Aesthetics
A style characterized by the intentional inclusion of imperfections in audio or visual quality, creating a raw, nostalgic, or authentic feel.
Lo-fi Music
Embraces imperfections, overlaps with Glitch Music. This genre celebrates intentional and unintentional flaws in audio production, creating a warm, accessible...
M
Machine Learning Art
Art generated through algorithms that learn and adapt based on data inputs, often creating unpredictable and innovative outputs. This form of artistic creation...
Media Jamming
The act of hijacking or altering mass media and its messages to produce satirical or political commentary.
Microsound
A musical genre focused on sounds operating on timescales too brief for human perception, resulting in distinctive sonic textures and atmospheric qualities.
N
Net Art Glitch
Glitch art on the internet, can involve Digital Corruption. This term refers to aesthetic digital errors and artifacts that occur within online environments,...
Neural Network Art
Artistic works generated by neural networks, which are algorithms modeled on the human brain, capable of creating complex and unexpected patterns.
New Media Art
Uses new media technologies, including Glitch Art.
Noise Music
A genre of experimental music that utilizes noise and atonal sounds as its primary components.
O
Optical Art
A visual art style employing optical illusions, typically featuring abstract patterns that produce the impression of movement or visual distortion.
Overmodulation: Distortion in Glitch Art & Audio
Overmodulation drives signals past their limits to create distortion artifacts. Learn how glitch artists use it intentionally in audio, video, and visual art.
P
Pixel Art Glitch
Manipulation of pixel art for glitch effects, representing a form of algorithmic art. This technique involves deliberately altering pixel-based imagery to...
Pixel Distortion
The visual effect of altering or corrupting pixels in an image, causing it to appear glitched or fragmented.
Pixel Sorting
An algorithmic method to rearrange pixels in an image, creating a glitchy effect. This technique is related to data moshing, another digital distortion method...
Pixelation
Images visible at the pixel level, used in Pixel Art Glitch.
Post-Internet Art
Reflects the internet era's impact, includes Glitch Art elements.
Procedural Generation
The creation of content algorithmically rather than manually, often used in video games and digital art to generate landscapes, patterns, or entire worlds.
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R
Raster Graphics
A type of digital image that uses pixels arranged in a grid to represent a picture, commonly used in digital photography and online images.
Real-time Glitch
Glitch effects created or manipulated live, used in Glitch Music performances. This term describes the practice of generating and modifying glitch effects in...
Remix Culture
Remixing existing materials, common in Glitch Art philosophy. This concept involves taking pre-existing digital or artistic content and recontextualizing or...
Retro-futurism
Envisions the future as imagined in the past, uses Glitch Art techniques. This aesthetic movement blends nostalgic visions of what the future was once expected...
S
Sample Rate Reduction
A digital audio technique that decreases the sample rate, resulting in reduced audio fidelity and the creation of distinctive sound artifacts characteristic of...
Scan Line
Lines from cathode-ray tube displays, used in VHS Glitch art.
Screen Tearing
A visual artifact in video displays that is related to signal degradation. This glitch occurs when the display shows portions from multiple frames...
Signal Degradation
Deliberate deterioration of digital or analog signal, commonly used in VHS Glitch art to create aesthetic effects through intentional signal corruption.
Signal Processing
The manipulation, analysis, and interpretation of signals, such as audio, video, or sensor data, often used in communication and digital media.
Sound Art
An artistic discipline in which sound is utilized as a primary medium, often transcending traditional categories like music or sculpture. This approach...
Sound Distortion
The alteration of an audio signal in a way that deviates from the original sound, often used to create a unique or desired effect.
Spatial Audio
Audio technology that creates the illusion of sound sources existing in a three-dimensional space, enhancing the realism or immersion of an experience.
Surrealist Photography
A genre of photography that emphasizes bizarre, dream-like, or illogical scenes, often creating a disorienting or fantastical effect.
Synthetic Media
Media generated or manipulated by artificial intelligence or digital software, including deepfakes, synthetic voices, and generative art.
T
Tactile Interface
An interface designed to be interacted with through touch, often providing feedback to the user, used in devices like smartphones and tablets.
Texture Mapping
A graphic design process where a 2D image is wrapped around a 3D object, used in video games and 3D modeling to add surface details. This technique allows...
Time Stretching
The process of changing the speed or duration of an audio signal without altering its pitch, often used in music production. This technique allows musicians...
V
Vaporwave
Vaporwave merges nostalgic imagery with glitch aesthetics, creating a visual style that parallels glitch art in its artistic approach and visual...
Vector Graphics
A type of digital graphic that uses mathematical formulas to render images, allowing for scalability without loss of quality.
VHS Glitch
A style of digital art that emulates the visual errors and artifacts characteristic of VHS tape degradation. This aesthetic mimics the glitchy appearance...
Video Art
Created with video technology, often includes Glitch Video elements.
Video Feedback
A visual effect created by pointing a video camera at its own playback screen, creating a recursive loop of distorted images.
Video Synthesizer
Manipulates video signals for visual effects, often involving analog distortion.
Virtual Reality Art
Art created for or within virtual reality environments, often leveraging the immersive qualities of VR to create new forms of expression. This describes...
Visual Distortion
Any alteration of visual perception or imagery that results in a twisted, blurred, or otherwise deformed appearance.
Visual Noise
Random signal interference commonly observed in VHS Glitch art. This effect produces the characteristic visual artifacts and distortions associated with...
W
Waveform Distortion
The alteration of the shape of a waveform in audio or electronic signals, affecting the tone and quality of the sound.
Waveform Synthesis
A sound synthesis technique that involves combining and manipulating waveforms to create audio signals, used in electronic music and sound design.
White Noise
A random signal with equal intensity across different frequencies, often used in sound masking and electronic music.