Born from a shared appreciation of those 'glitchy' digital images that take one by surprise by failing to load or render 'correctly' on screen, Spinning Bits is a digital artwork devised in collaboration with friend (and technically superior coding wizard) Andy Law.
Dissecting a range of individual jpeg image files into single, pixel-wide vertical 'slices', each slice is then spun 360º around a central axis. On completion of each rotation, the software repeats the action on the next adjacent slice, and so on... and on...
The resulting animations present the information held within the images in such a way that their original 'meaning' can no longer be seen, instead presenting each as a dynamic, abstracted animation.
We're not sure if this is a useful form of encryption/censorship, but we found them quite beautiful anyway.
Spinning Bits was commissioned by Alt-W and presented at the 2010 Creativity World Forum Digital Art Biennale, Oklahoma City, USA, and subsequently at the Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh 2011