‘The year 2012 was a momentous one for the animated GIF. The popularity of Dump.fm was just beginning to fade, but the platform, which facilitates real-time chat with images, had sparked GIF-making among countless creatives, from programmers and musicians to designers and visual artists. With the rise of Tumblr, and the launch of Google+—social networks used extensively by artists to connect with each other and share GIFs—the medium became so ubiquitous that it was even dubbed the “Word of the Year” by the Oxford Dictionary.
‘Years on, has the mass popularity of GIFs affected art GIF-making communities? Rich Oglesby, who runs the Tumblr blog Prosthetic Knowledge, reminded me that GIFs have been present in online culture since the early days of the web, long before the rise of the GIF industry—Giphy, Gifpop!, Giphoscope, NewHive, etc. Back then sites like Word, Geocities, and B3ta were hosting familiar GIF archetypes that remain today: animated illustrations, stop-motion, glitchy discolorations, and digital low-res vectors. “And let’s not forget the glitter-vomit of MySpace pages,” Oglesby recalled.
‘It’s this history of relatively widespread accessibility that informs the artists making art GIFs. Artist Tom Moody, an early adopter, described what makes the art GIF distinct. “It’s a matter of context,” he said. “You have to catch the movement of images—the reacting or punning flow of one into another as people respond to each other’s posts. If it’s a ‘surf club’-type situation, if it’s happening on Tumblr or Dump.fm… to me that can be very much in the art domain, like a performance, whether the individual GIFs are self-consciously ‘art’ or not. That’s not the only ‘art’ use of GIFs, just one of the more subtle and difficult to identify (and document).” Another GIF-maker and artist, Anthony Antonellis, preferred to describe successful GIFs as silent “melodies”. They can take on as many different shapes as a song has stanzas.
‘“I feel like there’s not a good way to view [GIFs] in the gallery setting,” Benson told me. “They really belong on your browser.” And the problem with a web browser, according to Benson, is that it’s “a pretty terrible art viewing context.” The physicality of an object in a gallery commands attention in a way that the online artwork does not. “Because [the browser] is a general, all-purpose context, it doesn’t feel special,” Benson added. “It’s kind of like when I see art in a coffee shop; I’m there to drink coffee and do work. I’m not there to study the art.”
‘This anecdote highlights the challenge of even describing the medium, a problem Chan articulated in an email. “The GIF finds difficulty in occupying a genre and even resists many categorizations (it’s not photography or video, and there isn’t something else you can apply dither to and load in browser),” she wrote. “If there are inherent properties to GIFs like we mentioned (movement, jerkiness, short messages, repetition), maybe people can’t assess them with the same contemplative lens they bring to the fine arts.”
‘And while that mentality seems very much behind the rise of the art GIF party, sustained growth at the level seen in 2012 seems almost impossible. The Dump.fm community has shrunk over the years, and nobody I spoke to uses Google+ anymore. “I really do think of that first summer with Google+ as a beautiful era for GIFs,” Antonellis recalled. “It did something more than Dump.fm could,” he said, referring to the extended time users had to respond to posts. Google+ acted more like a blog than Dump’s chat room.
‘Conversations like these reveal just how much GIFs live or die by these platforms. “We’ve come to rely on these consumer-grade solutions because that’s what’s available, but it was never the intention of the makers. It was never the intention of Google+ to be the platform for sharing animated GIFs,” Benson said. “It feels like the community has contracted a certain amount in the last year. Maybe it’s just the fossilization of my own social network, but I’m not seeing these big expansive GIF group shows.” A. Bill Miller, by contrast, is a little more optimistic in his assessment. “It feels like [the community is] always growing and contracting.” he tells me. “It’s in a middle stage.”’ — Paddy Johnson
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Dina Kelberman Cloud Formations (2012)
Dirt
Gunfight at the OK Corral
Marjorie Morningstar
Night Passage
Over the Edge
Private House of the SS
Roller Boogie
Saskatchewan
Seminole
Sleepaway Camp
The Apple Dumpling Gang
The Black Knight
The Day After
The Last Chase
The Pursuit of DB Cooper
The Babysitter
The Prince and the Showgirl
The Secret Life of Plants
They Came to Cordura
Tumbleweed
Yankee Buccaneer
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Bill Domonkos Untitled (2016)
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Jack Goldstein Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1975/2010)
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Luis Ricardo Various
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Cory Arcangel Super Mario Clouds (2002)
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7Z Untitled (2014)
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Three Frames Various (2020-2022)
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Alexandria McCrosky Untitled
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Crego Various (2022-2023)
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Gustavo Torres Untitled (2015)
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Nicolas Monterrat Various (2011-2019)
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‘AS Long As Possible (ASLAP) is a 1000 year long animated GIF loop. It’s an art project by Juha van Ingen in collaboration with Janne Särkelä. It is the longest GIF in the world. After 1000 years it’ll start again from the beginning.’
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9NUE Untitled (2021)
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Cristóbal Valenzuela The Alternative Late Show with Stephen Colbert (2018)
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Dario Alva Untitled
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Erdal Inci Clones Project
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Juan Mastro Baby Jesus
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James Kerr Untitled (2014)
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Steven Purtill Four Languages (2018)
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Micaël Reynaud Untitled (2011)
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Marisa Olson 102 Dalmatians (2010)
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Maciej Drabik Smol
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Barin Untitled (2018)
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Kevin Weir Various (2014)
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p.s. Hey. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Coolness. At least of late, love seems to like big asks, so go for it. The potential sortserve place is on today’s agenda, but I feel confident that it’s not going to be the wonderful 90% chemicals, dipped in chocolate and sprinkled with jimmies type I crave. But hope springs eternal. Love filming you scratching your nose with his iPhone then feeding the footage into gifmaker and donating the results to the Louvre who replace the Mona Lisa with it, G. ** Lucas, Hi, Lucas! Those collages are really good! You have the total touch! Both so charismatic. I am cheerleading you further into that seemingly made-for-you medium with no checks on your instincts. Thank you! No, it won’t be too bad here yet when you’re here, Olympics-damage-wise. Yep, hit me up, I’m here and not too time crunched. Today’s your graduation? Embrace irony, I guess? Do you have to wear a cap and gown? I skipped mine. I don’t remember if I ever even got an actual diploma. My yesterday wasn’t much, but today holds some promise, although it’s raining hard yet again and most of my promise is outdoors, so we’ll see. Let’s compare notes. ** Jack Skelley, Jack of ‘Manny, Moe & Jack’ fame! Jackie makes me think of Jackie Kennedy. Who could be your doppelgänger, let’s face it. Oops: instagram. I just get threats over at Facebook. Of course I do remember seeing the Bunnymen at the Whisky. That’s when they were fiery. Me too, re: Welles, and Ozick too. Signed, Moe of ‘The Three Stooges’ fame. ** dwt, Minutes are relative around here. Hey! Wow, I was so all over your dream. My material is honored. I wish I could remember my dreams. You could have been in mine last night and I would never know. I’m good-ish. Hope you’re good sans -ish. ** _Black_Acrylic, I do think maybe I remember that tale? But it needed a brush up, if so, so thank you, dream weaver (nothing to do with that horrible song). Is Hungary a tough bunch? My fingers are starting to move into a crossed position. ** Cletus, Hi. Glad you liked them: the posts, works. Uh, … hm, no one springs to my mind re: sadomasochism and poetry. That’s interesting. There must be others, but I’m blanking. Let me think on that. Hope you’re great. ** Bill, At the moment, no get-away plans, but Zac and I want to do an amusement park-focused road trip, and that would be the perfect time to do so, so maybe. Right, Fritsch was quite a thing back when. Apparently she still is in certain parts of Europe. But … but .. but … you naked in a bathtub playing guitar on video is such a genius idea! ** Dev, Hi. Hm, I should find that Foerster story. I haven’t read him since, gosh, the 1980s? Yeah, I have friends who have kids and then tell me they can’t read my books anymore and a couple who’ve told me I should never have written books like that in the first place. Having a kid is a powerful thing. Really powerful. ** Mark, Hey there, bud. Wow, website, and it looks so great at first peek! Everyone, Mark’s amazing Mattazine Society now has its own website, which looks very explorable. Go here and heavily peruse and poke ‘bookmark’. So great! Our film is about an inch from being finished, and I don’t know if there’s new news, but happy to share any. Thank you, maestro. Have big fun at the zine fest. ** Harper, Hey. Indeed about the MAGA-like contingent of meat eaters. When I turned vegetarian at 15, my mom was constantly sneaking meat into my food thinking I would eat it and go ‘yum’ and she could say, ‘Ah ha!’ but meat can’t hide when you’re vegetarian. It’s singularly blatant. I wouldn’t worry about using the patch. I used the patch the two times I quit, and both times I managed to quit for years, and it really, really helped. I too found Delmore Schwartz through the Velvets/Reed. I sort of feel everyone who reads him does. Maybe you changed those Jehovah’s Witnesses lives. It’s not impossible. I don’t know if they have JWs over here. I don’t remember even seeing a Christian on the street ranting and raving. Oh, wait, there are these Korean cult member people proselytizing here and there, but they’re very polite. ** Justin D, Hi Justin. Thanks! Great, you’re reading ‘Fable’ and digging it! Wonderful! Such a huge favorite of mine. How’s everything else? You sound really good. ** Uday, Happily my stomach isn’t as hungry as my brain, otherwise I’d look like Edmund White. Oops, that’s mean, sorry. I think I ‘high five’ here because it’s the most ridiculous thing when people do it live, or so it seems to me. Mm, no, I don’t think I greet usually. Handshake in the States, double air-cheek kiss over here, the occasional hug. I don’t know what ‘dapped up’ is. I’ll look it up. That was a dreamy couple of sentences you wrote there. I’m going to study them. Actually, I really need it to stop raining today because I have a couple of long walks I have to do thanks-no thanks to the metro stations being closed due to the fucking Olympics. But I guess a ‘pleasant’ rain would be doable. So thank you. You want some rain? I’ll go far above my station and bequeath it if so. ** Don Waters, Oh, no. Hi, Donny. Take that. I think the only Genesis I could possibly still like if that’s even possible would be from the Peter Gabriel era only. We don’t get that wallpaper country music over here. The French aren’t into that stuff, not even the good stuff, as far I can tell. I’ve never seen any country artists do concerts here whereas the shittiest rock bands you can imagine come over here and play huge sold out shows. Strange place, music-wise. It does seem like the French are singlehandedly keep jazz alive though, and I guess that’s good. Good old Pig Destroyer. Yeah, I think if I had a kid or kids I’d be a very different person/artist. Probably not a very good one, or maybe a worse artist and better person? I don’t know. I’m going to meditate on that. ** Nika Mavrody, I didn’t come across any abortion related art in my search. Strange, right? ** Oscar 🌀, Hey! That’s interesting and makes sense about Dora. Huh. I love the way Danish people pronounce Dennis, so thank you. Do you like skywriting? Of course you do. Good. Well, go outside and look upwards at 2:47 pm today and the sky might just have a friendly greeting for you. No, yeah, that Australian TV show. I can’t stop looking at those gifs. I too knew/know nothing about gay Korean webcomics, but I will join you in your investigation. Dialed up pitfalls: nice! Weekend … see a film today, a little art, softserve ice cream possibly, power meeting at 6 pm with film people, and then a weekend of film script writing and absence of rain hopefully and, gosh, who knows. You got something imminently going on? ** Right. You all are extremely aware of my love for animated gifs, and today I present to you some self-styled artists who work with them. How about that? See you tomorrow.
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