For those who don't know GIFs are a file format .gif that holds a few frames of a video or stop motion photographs that loop forever. The internet over the past few years has been churning out millions of gifs. From a scene from a movie to a handdrawn mini cartoon. But now there is debate whether gifs can be made into an art form. I mean if you think about it Photography started out for science and then use at home and for children but also an art form...
YoMeryl, Sarah Zucker and Bronwyn Lundberg, has just recently brought gifs to the Brooklyn Musuem as art. The gifs they portray are a play on pop culture and art history having celebrities like Lena Dunham and Lady Gaga mixing with famous art exhibits from Judy Chicago's "Dinner Party" to Ai Weiwei's "He Xie."
When interviewed about their gifs they said their gifs show a "hyperreality that shows subjects engaging with art so much so that they enter the art or become part of the art." Which leads to a very popular type of artwork right now: Interactive Art. But not all gif artists are creating these sorts of scenes. Some are taking a more abstract approach to gif art.
Erik Soderberg in 2011 experimented with the animation of gifs and "the relations of geometry, nature and the human being" Each piece being more mesmerizing than the next, Soderberg creates insane illusions that loop forever. These gifs are more generative than YoMeryl's but still use gifs as the main medium.
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| Erik Soderberg, Vibrating Icosahedron, gif, 2011 |
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| Erik Soderberg, Torus, gif, 2011 |
References:
NYMagazine http://nymag.com/thecut/2014/12/are-gifs-art-the-pop-art-pair-yomeryl-discusses.html
Erik Soderberg: http://work.eriksoderberg.se/Fractal-Experience-Part-2
