Exclusively released on Sedition, Pluripotent Cells is the first video of the ongoing series Biologlitchy - a project studying glitch distortion in image files after applying compression and manipulation of files data.

Made in collaboration with biotechnology researcher Anna Spina, the aim of Biolglitchy project is to bring together imagery from a scientific research method like immunofluorescence, and a glitch art technique such as databending. Here, Barra is attempting to juxtapose the approaches by digitally manipulating images from Spina’s staining research, as both entail the study of the structure and behaviour of elementary organic and digital matter, with the common goal of revealing what is unseen to the human eye.

The original images show biological Pluripotent Cells under immunofluorescence staining, whereby this technique highlights the structures in tissues, enhancing colour contrast in the microscopic image with the use of dyes.

Meanwhile, databending in glitch art, is the operation of reacting with and manipulating the data contained inside digital images. The original images are glitched so as to alter the actual state of the image’s ‘internal data skeleton’ and the structures by which its elements are sorted due to that peculiar image data standards.

For the work that form the Pluripotent Cells video, the image file formats glitched are in sequence: .vst - .pdf - .tga - .png - .jpg2000 - .tga - .jpg - .vst - .rgb - .flif - .avi