I am a huge how- to person. Being a sound artist in a school with basically no sound/ new media studios I have taught my self a lot with how- to’s and online tutorials. I think these and the Internet in general create a more creative society as well as a society that is more willing to experiment with the technological devices we are given.
For How to Databen an Image using Audacity I will show how I have been processing most of images to turn into prints, sounds and other art works. The basic concept behind the process is that a digital image is basically just data. Any program can read data, it just has to know its only data. So Audacity will turn the data of an image into a sound, then we are able to edit the image as if we were editing sound. Reverse it, invert it, phasers, delay, you know, the whole 9 yards. For me, a sound artist, this transition of image into sound back to image is really interesting. The sound of the image’s data is nothing more than you expect, just a bunch of clicks, squeals and pitches, so I don’t really recommend listening to the sounds too much in the process, especially if you’re in a public place.
CAUTION: This is a glitch process. A glitch a alternate outcome in a system. So you might not always get what you want or get anything after exporting. There is a trial and error system to get used to so don’t be frustrated if it doesn’t work out the first couple of times. The source file/ image is a huge factor as well. Sometimes I can’t even get certain images to work.
Andy Knolle 