# Pixel Sorting (ピクセルソーティング)

> Pixel Sorting selects image pixels by a brightness or hue threshold and reorders them within rows or columns, drawing long color streaks out of a still-recognisable source image. Kim Asendorf's released code enabled widespread reimplementation.

- IndexStyle No.573 — https://indexstyle.org/styles/pixel-sorting
- Kind: Technique · Family: Digital Image Techniques · Era: 2010–
- Mood: Technique, Rebellion, 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

- Long horizontal or vertical pixel streams leaving a figure or landscape
- Only part of an outline flowing into bands
- Unselected areas preserving the source image
- Local color bands smoothly ordered by value or hue

## Best used for

- Covers and posters that damage part of a photograph while keeping the subject legible
- Transitions that turn a frame's color distribution into bands leading into the next shot

## Composition recipe

- Typography & lettering: Keep copy outside the sorted field, or flow only part of a headline along the same axis while preserving body legibility.
- Layout & structure: Choose one sorting direction, tune the threshold to the subject and preserve islands of the source image.
- Material & texture: Select pixels by value, saturation or hue and reorder only contiguous intervals within a row or column.

## Colour

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

- Ground: #EAEAEA
- The colour it is remembered by: #00A8C6
- Text and outlines: #191919

## What to avoid

Sorting the entire frame removes the tension with its source and leaves an ordinary striped pattern. Decide what breaks and what remains.

## Application checklist

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

- [ ] Visible in the piece: Long horizontal or vertical pixel streams leaving a figure or landscape
- [ ] Visible in the piece: Only part of an outline flowing into bands
- [ ] Visible in the piece: Unselected areas preserving the source image
- [ ] Visible in the piece: Local color bands smoothly ordered by value or hue
- [ ] The layout follows: Choose one sorting direction, tune the threshold to the subject and preserve islands of the source image.
- [ ] The lettering follows: Keep copy outside the sorted field, or flow only part of a headline along the same axis while preserving body legibility.
- [ ] The material and surface follow: Select pixels by value, saturation or hue and reorder only contiguous intervals within a row or column.
- [ ] The colour relation holds: #EAEAEA as ground, #00A8C6 carrying the style, #191919 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=pixel-sorting+glitch

## Further study

- Kim Asendorf and Mountain Tour
- Threshold and interval selection
- Row, column and diagonal sorting

## Reference works

- Institute of Network Cultures — The New Aesthetic and Art — https://networkcultures.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/TOD20-final.pdf

## AI interpretation

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

## Source of record

- Institute of Network Cultures — The New Aesthetic and Art — https://networkcultures.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/TOD20-final.pdf

## Machine surfaces

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