GIFs get a new life as pop art
Recall, dear reader, the infant Web. Modems squeaked and whirred, and AOL ruled supreme. Devoid of videos, the nascent Internet was static and textual. The Graphics Interchange Format, or GIF, was an exception. An icon of Web 1.0, the low-resolution, animated image fell out of favor as bandwidths grew to support more sophisticated online videos. But the GIF (say 鈥渏iff鈥�) has experienced a renaissance of late, as bloggers, advertisers, and artists have found new ways to utilize this digital relic.
鈥淚n content creation, there鈥檚 always been a way that people have appropriated things as identity markers,鈥� says Lee Rainie, director of Pew Research Center鈥檚 Internet & American Life Project. He compares animated GIFs to the way people use emoticons or unique e-mail signatures as a form of personal expression.
GIFs arrived in 1987 and became a fad among early Internauts. They decorated GeoCities pages with gaudy, looping animations of 鈥渦nder construction鈥� signs, a spinning Earth, and a dancing baby made famous by the hit television series 鈥�Ally McBeal.鈥� Then, as quickly as they had arrived, GIFs became design faux pas as streaming video and high-quality images rendered them woefully pass茅.聽
But the GIF is back in the digital lexicon, even earning the title 鈥渨ord of the year鈥� from the Oxford American Dictionary in 2012. This May, Steve Wilhite, the GIF鈥檚 inventor, accepted a lifetime achievement award at the Webby Awards, the Internet鈥檚 Emmys.
The resurgence is partly owed to the blogging platform Tumblr, which lends itself to the easily made and shared nature of GIFs. Users post hypnotic loops lasting only a few seconds from popular YouTube clips, sports replays, or TV shows, coupled with text equating the scene to everyday affairs. For example, on #whatshouldwecallme, a popular Tumblr site, the words 鈥淲hen there鈥檚 an all-staff e-mail at work saying there鈥檚 food in the pantry鈥� are animated by a GIF of the 鈥�Scooby-Doo鈥� gang hurrying across the screen.
Artists push the medium beyond pixelated similes, creating what is more than a photo but not quite a movie. Collaborators Jamie Beck and Kevin Burg use GIFs to animate a detail of an otherwise still photo 鈥� a man turning the pages of a newspaper, or the breeze blowing through a woman鈥檚 hair. The resulting 鈥渃inemagraph鈥� is subtle and poetic 鈥� the antithesis of early one-dimensional GIF expressions. Microsoft, Google, and others have commissioned work from the pair. Their interest amuses Mr. Burg.
鈥淚 used to create [GIFs] in the mid-鈥�90s for fun when I was 12 years old,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 funny that something I once dabbled in is now my career trajectory.鈥�
