Now dozens if not hundreds of “Simple Net Art Diagram” GIFs exist, each offering a different theory about where art happens. This was not merely a diagram, though, but an invitation to other artists to locate and define art for themselves through the manipulation of the image. The image itself is an illustration of two computers with a red flashing lightning bolt between them it pinpoints communication as the core purpose of art. Artists don’t generally license their GIFs-Internet users usually assume they can do what they want with them-but MTAA’s gesture was an invitation to join a dialogue. In 1997, the two-person artist collective MTAA released it to the public domain for remixing. Simple Net Art Diagram is the earliest and perhaps the most enduring animated GIF for its provocation to participate.
MTAA Reference Resource, Simple Net Art Diagram (1997). And of course, in the tradition of the collaborative Internet, I invite you to suggest your own additions to the list through social media so we can create a more broad and comprehensive account of the ways that artists have been using GIFs and why that history is so important. We’ll begin by covering the years 1998-2006. The following selection is by no means comprehensive and, full disclaimer, will draw at times from the GIF exhibition I curated in 2011 for Denison University, which was also called “ Graphics Interchange Format”. That history isn’t going to be told in one article, but given the pervasive lack of documentation, an overview is essential before key moments are completely forgotten. This poses a problem because it means it’s much more difficult to piece together a history of how GIFs have been used in an art context. The same is true of the non-profit digital arts organization Rhizome, which heavily promoted its 2006 exhibition, “ The Animated GIF Show,” on MySpace, and hosted the show in San Francisco.
“Save for Web,” a GIF exhibition that opened in August 2009 at Xpace Cultural Centre in Toronto has its own 1.0 website at Angel Fire, but no install shots or GIF slideshows. Bond Street, a Brooklyn-based gallery that hosted Laurel Ptak’s exhibition “ Graphics Interchange Format” in August 2008, no longer exists and neither does its website. What does the history of GIF art look like? This is a tricky question to answer because while there has been no shortage of animated GIF exhibitions, there is a dearth of documentation.
0 kommentar(er)
