# Databending (データベンディング)

> Databending edits image or sound files with tools not intended for their format, turning a decoder's misreading into the work; file structure, compression and edit position determine its bands and color shifts.

- IndexStyle No.588 — https://indexstyle.org/styles/databending
- Kind: Technique · Family: Digital Image Techniques · Era: 2000s–
- Mood: Rebellion, Technique, Play
- What this family collects: Each brings the smallest units of an image, or the machinery of its compression, to the surface, so coarseness and breakdown count as method instead of defect.

## Defining characteristics

- Sections of an image displaced into horizontal bands
- Separated color channels and unexpected saturation
- Local compression blocks that leave the source visible
- Row-like fractures repeating from the edit point

## Best used for

- Showing the fragility and format-dependence of digital files through the damaged image
- Colliding source imagery with decoder error in video, covers and posters

## Composition recipe

- Typography & lettering: Add copy after bending, or displace only part of a duplicate headline along the same axis.
- Layout & structure: Preserve one identifiable point and use the fracture direction as a compositional axis.
- Material & texture: Duplicate the file, protect its header and edit only payload data through another format's editor.

## Colour

Read off the reference works below, so a direction rather than a fixed palette.

- Ground: #00E4C6
- The colour it is remembered by: #FF3D8D
- Text and outlines: #101018

## What to avoid

A glitch overlay is not databending. The way one format was deliberately misread must determine the result.

## Application checklist

Work through this before calling a piece an application of this style.

- [ ] Visible in the piece: Sections of an image displaced into horizontal bands
- [ ] Visible in the piece: Separated color channels and unexpected saturation
- [ ] Visible in the piece: Local compression blocks that leave the source visible
- [ ] Visible in the piece: Row-like fractures repeating from the edit point
- [ ] The layout follows: Preserve one identifiable point and use the fracture direction as a compositional axis.
- [ ] The lettering follows: Add copy after bending, or displace only part of a duplicate headline along the same axis.
- [ ] The material and surface follow: Duplicate the file, protect its header and edit only payload data through another format's editor.
- [ ] The colour relation holds: #00E4C6 as ground, #FF3D8D carrying the style, #101018 for text and outlines
- [ ] At least one reference work below has been studied directly
- [ ] The caution above ("What to avoid") has been addressed

## Related styles

- **Glitch (グリッチ)** — Refuses to hide error and corruption, exposing the fragility of the digital medium itself. → https://indexstyle.org/styles/glitch
- **Datamosh (データモッシュ)** — Deliberately breaking a video's keyframes so that the previous image is dragged along and dissolved by the next motion. The technique turns the inner workings of the compression algorithm into an aesthetic. → https://indexstyle.org/styles/datamosh

## Compose it with something else

The dictionary can put this entry in a structural role and another in an accent role, and report where the two fight: https://indexstyle.org/compose?ids=databending+glitch

## Further study

- Raw data editing
- File headers and payload
- Compression artifacts as material

## Reference works

- Rhizome — Artist Profile: Nick Briz — https://old.rhizome.org/editorial/2013/jul/15/artist-profile-nick-briz/

## AI interpretation

An AI-generated interpretation image exists for browsing convenience only — it is not a reference work: https://indexstyle.org/ai/databending.jpg

## Source of record

- Rhizome — Artist Profile: Nick Briz — https://old.rhizome.org/editorial/2013/jul/15/artist-profile-nick-briz/

## Machine surfaces

- JSON: https://indexstyle.org/api/styles/databending
- Image-generation prompt (legally clean): https://indexstyle.org/styles/databending/prompt.txt
- MCP: https://indexstyle.org/mcp (tools: search_styles, get_style, compare_styles, compose_styles, find_related_styles; prompts: image-prompt, apply-style)