GIF Article

Animated GIFs have no boundaries or lines that they cannot cross within the internet realm. Everyone can create a GIF with ease which enables everyone to have the power to blur the distinction between art and non-art categories on the internet. “GIFs provide brief moments of aesthetic affect, diversions that are set apart from the running narrative of the work day”. I can relate to this quote because whenever I find myself looking up GIFs, it is usually during when I feel like taking a break from my studies or just simply wanting to relax and get carried away by internet culture. GIFs are always straight to the point and focus on the peak of its subject that it repeats in an endless loop. I never questioned myself before whether or not I considered GIFs as art. They most certainly are a form of art that came about from internet culture and has expanded into a variety of categories. Even though I can agree that they are a form of art, still when I view them, the word “art” doesn’t come to mind unless I am specifically looking at an “artist’s” GIF that was purposefully intended to be viewed as art. Though most of the GIFs I normally spend my time around are GIFs that involve funny moments from movies, home videos, and animals. And since I find that the creators of those GIFs did not originally have an intent to turn their home movies into a form of internet art, I find it hard to relate such images as art even though they can be argued to be.

This article was very interesting however. It challenged me to see the GIFS that I come across everyday in a different light and angle and to also question the intent of art for those purposes. I find that most intriguing…