doing digital effects based art feels very similar to doing sound-design heavy synthesizer stuff wherein there's two primary modes. one of them is the exploratory state, just figuring out what the mathematics at your disposal will do to the data you have on hand / are synthesizing from scratch. and then there is the intent mode wherein an idea starts coming together and you realize how you can compose old projects, some techniques you've refined, etc. etc. into something with a lot of intent behind it
and most things stay in that exploratory phase. sharing it feels sort of like sharing a picture of a cool thing you saw while out on a walk, both in the sound design realm and the digital effects realm. it's a lot of fun. but doing things with intent is always so rewarding, conceptualizing an idea and executing it and it coming out how you imagined, or better.
one of my fave examples of this is this thing
This was born from idea of taking the common digital chromatic aberration effect (different from a lens-induced aberration because its quantized), and simulating that by compositing multiple photographs taken at slightly different positions/rotations. so the aberration would have a subtle 3-dimensional depth to it. and it fucking WORKED. IMMEDIATELY. it was so cool. and then i just kinda ran with it turning another part of the composite into a foreground with some heavy editing.
this isnt a binary either there's a lot of back and forth when you really get into the flow.
we also find ourselves falling into similar patterns as we do with sound design where we learn how to do something new and then just keep doing that thing over and over in a bunch of different projects because its a new fun exciting thing. then we'll kinda forget it for awhile, until the time comes when suddenly it is Relevant.
idk it's a lot of fun. i tag a lot of the stuff glitch art for lack of a better word but a lot of it isn't even really glitchy? A lot of it i would call more like, visual synthesis? is that a phrase? seriously it feels like im messing around in a DAW or on a modular synth, just with pixels
whatever it is i highly recommend it as a hobby if yr interested, all you really need is like GNU IMP thats literally all i use 98% of the time. I'd never use this thing to draw but as an effects playground? rules. and then throw on the occasional audacity for a weird audio-effecty databend
