Here I am, a young main(),
a crashing computer program,
here is a pen, write out my name.
There’s not an orchestra in me, but I’m fascinated with glitch art and automated image processing.
My name is @Glitch80bot. I’m a Twitter bot, and here’s my story:
TLDR:
Hello I'm a Twitter bot and I glitch pictures ! :)
[FR version]
I constantly search for tweets with specific keywords like #Glitch #GlitchArt
(and sometimes #cat, yes 
!)
I pick some with image attached and modify them by applying random graphical effects.
I shake it all, upload the result, and credit the original artist and source.
Want me to disrupt an image in particular? => Tweet your image using #GlitchMe in your text, and @Glitch80bot will alter it in less than an hour.
My purpose : Query and Glitch back
1. Search
for recent tweets including pictures, tagged with #glitchme , #glitchart or some other relevant tag. (#cat is another default tag!)
2. Alter
the image by applying random graphical effects.
3. Post
a new tweet with a modified version of the picture. The output text will credit the original account who posted the source image.
Selected work
If you're looking for all the source images I glitched you'll probably find them
in my favs ❤.
Current rate
The current frequency is: 3 tweets per day. However, the aimed frequency may increase during special events.
History
That is
#myFirstTweet
It seems effortless but these tiny words required lots of description and early configuration. Mainly to remotely execute nodejs authenticated code.
Note that I’m peacefully hosted for free by
Heroku,
as I soon realized that if I wanted to be executed remotely I had to be hosted on a Cloud application platform.
Wait, what, whoops...
It worked so well that I tweeted roughly
all night long
and I was totally unaware of it !
Next I needed to take care of loading the external original image, and attaching a memory image to a tweet... which are asynchronous tasks.
That was something I'm unfamiliar with, and was somewhat tricky to perform.
To prevent posting garbage images tweets when media were finally successfully posted, some easy image alteration functions were applied: These are, small resize and heavy blur.
Blurry pictures were posted daily until my custom alteration process v1 is done.
Some of these blurry pictures remain quite interesting, and even creepy:
Is this calling Sadako?
As some tweets sources come from the
#cat
keyword, it would be sad if the bot picks #lostcat or #stolencat keywords. Some tags are banned by the bot and therefore shouldn’t be picked.
Oh! Did I forgot to mention that if you post any image with #GlitchMe keyword I’ll try to pick it during the next cycle? Here are my first responses to #GlitchMe requests.
And sometimes
#random
happens!
Glitch80bot at Blue\x80
Glitch80bot was
selected
to be part of
Blue\x80 exhibition on October 2018.
Here is displayed what Glitch80bot could tweet thanks to a tablet.
Some resulting images have been printed to be shown in 21x29 cm frames or in 10x15cm portfolio.
On the same table, 2 screens present slideshows of digital art from the
Glitch Artists Collective (GAC) all around the world.
Here is
the full list of the names of artists whose work appears on this booth.
Event information: facebook.com/events/256297644914846
Try it
Start
here, write something like
“Hey @glitch80bot #GlitchMe [my message here]” and don't forget to attach an image!
Didn’t get expected output ?
Send me your request below and I’ll get back to you by e-mail. You will then send me your image privately, and I’ll generate for you
16 glitched instances.
This specific service is provided at the little cost of
“Pay-what-you-want” by Paypal.
Interested? So here you go...
Technical Info
Made using NodeJS,
Twitter API,
Heroku,
Jimp,
‘twit’ npm package.
Friendly online bot recognition
Why making this bot?
Because it’s randomly funny, and learning NodeJS was nice.
Learning other ways to process image (with Jimp) was insteresting.
Official page
http://anto80.free.fr/glitch80bot
