So often in photography, we are seeking technical perfection over the actual output. It’s easy to obsess over the ideal camera settings, the sharpest lens, and the newest camera body. While fun and enjoyable in its own right, it's often really nice and rewarding to move away from that — to re-examine what makes a “perfect” image and challenge what a photograph “should be.”

In this workshop, we will shift away from the technical protection that we so often seek in photography and push our images beyond the normal bounds of editing utilizing Databending. In Databending, instead of editing the pixels of the images, you edit the code that makes it up, remixing and mashing it together in new ways creating entirely unique compositions.

We will explore how to do this utilizing programs like Audacity, note pad, and various hex editors, and how we can expand this even beyond photography into the realm of video and digital art.

For this workshop you will need either a Mac of Windows laptop, and it is suggested to bring your own images to work on, but some sample ones will be provided. This workshop is best suited to artists 16 and above; minors must be accompanied by an adult.

Leni Mae Wiegand is a transfeminine lens-based artist. She received her MFA in Photography from IU in 2025 and her BA in Business Management from Benedictine University in 2022 along with their AAS in Photography from the College of DuPage in 2020.