On March 25th, 2012, the /r/brokengifs subreddit was launched, featuring animated GIFs created using datamoshing techniques. On May 16th, 2011, YouTuber Yung Jake uploaded a music video titled 'Datamosh,' which included a variety of compression artifacts (shown below). In this post I’ll be focusing on pictures and videos, namely how the effect is achieved and what can be created with this technique.

Within the first four years, the video gathered more than 10.3 million views and 11,400 comments. Datamoshing, also known as glitching or databending, is a type audiovisual effect that relies on broken or augmented files of originally clean media. On June 16th, rapper Kanye West released the music video for his song 'Welcome to the Heartbreak' (shown below), which featured many datamoshed video artifacts. Open AviDemux 2.5.6 Go to FILE and load in the video you want to use. On February 24th, 2009, YouTuber datamosher uploaded a datamosh instructional video (shown below, left). On August 2nd, 2007, YouTuber Michael Crowe uploaded a video titled 'Takeshi Murata,' which featured a montage of datamoshed videos (shown below). In 2006, a technique created by artists Betrand Planes and Christian Jacquemin transcodes one lossy video format into another was demonstrated with the modified DivX video codec DivXPrime. According to the tech blog Bit_Synthesis published a post titled 'Datamoshing – the Beauty of Glitch,' the practice of datamoshing had been used by digital artists since at least 2005. Datamoshing video made during the first year of my Masters by Research degree, and exhibited as part of my examination exhibition.

Datamosh a video