feedback on frame grab gif post

Got some good feedback on the GIF theory, but mostly concerning frame-grab GIFs post. (Let me know if you want attribution for these):

comment 1 There are a lot of artists on Tumblr or wherever else (u dont have to call em artists if u dont want) that are doing original animation GIFs either from drawings made in the computer or entirely created on their own 3D/more photoshop illustrator work. I think there is a whole category of ppl who r making GIFs between what u call an art gif and 'they' call art gifs. It's basically ppl who are just animators, they have tools to animate images and instead of using found imagery they are making their own and animating it, it may not be gritty or low res but it's not remix culture or just some grab of someone elses video.
Also, I've decided i like cinemagraphs, not as art objects or anything but just for their technical proficiency. It is an interesting technique and format, ppl are just using it horribly wrong and discussing it in awful ways and calling them dumb names instead of just GIFs lol.

reply: I had to put down a territorial marker for "my" notion of an art GIF -- likely the more high-res work you're describing would be mentioned, too, if we could first wrestle Rhizome and the other theorists away from "GIF = frame grab GIF."
I think cinemagraphs are fine for comedy -- I haven't seen a non-silly use of it because the whole premise is still a "beautiful" photo with a moving element.

comment 2: i don't think your analogy works, popularity and fetishism are two different things - gifs have always been part of the popular online fabric but now they're fetishized by complete hacks as a marketing/advertorial touchpoint

reply: my musician neighbor across the street said "you were really ahead of this gif thing" -- pink floyd before and after Dark Side is a GREAT analogy. GIFs are fetishized by hacks as a marketing/advertorial touchpoint because they are perceived to be popular, whereas five years ago those same hacks didn't know from GIFs.

comment 3: maybe I need to read more about GIF cause idgi or maybe should just retire lol

reply: GIFs with celebrities and movie references are easier for theorists as well as consumers

GIF theory, but mostly concerning frame-grab GIFs

Ryder Ripps hopes that GIF fetishization will end this year -- well and good but as a GIF appreciator a few years ago, he's a bit like the 1973 Pink Floyd fan whose favorite psych group suddenly went platinum with Dark Side of the Moon -- nothing is ever as cool once it's popular.
Meanwhile theory is struggling to catch up with what "GIF culture" even means. Three essays from the 2011 - 2013 period (which I only just focused on) fixate almost entirely on "remix" or "frame grab" GIFs, interpreting clips from movies and TV shows; none considers the GIF type I'm probably most intrigued by, which is frame-by-frame animation of original drawings. Daniel Rourke defines "art gifs" as fancier frame grab GIFs that use high resolution. To me an "art gif" is a low res abstraction or cartoon graphic that has almost no reference to, or is actively against, video and photography.

Morgan Quaintance's 2013 Frieze article, A Brief History of the Gif, considers the issue of taste and defines GIF culture as an exercise in camp a la Susan Sontag's "Notes on Camp" essay:

...As Susan Sontag wrote: ‘the lover of camp appreciates vulgarity […] sniffs the stink and prides himself on his strong nerves.’ This line is from a key section in Sontag’s famous 1964 essay ‘Notes on Camp’, in which she argues that the ‘lover of camp in the age of mass culture’ is the modern incarnation of the dandy. While the dandy sought rarefied experience as a remedy for boredom, the lover of camp appreciates ‘the coarsest, commonest pleasures, in the arts of the masses’. If, as I’m suggesting, camp is the dominant sensibility of the web, then GIF appreciation – as an ennui suppressant accessed through exposure to the coarsest, most common produce of mass culture – might be the answer to this question: how to be a dandy in the information age?

My Psychotronic GIFs essay for Art F City in 2008 also considered bad taste as an oppositional or distancing device but I used only one or two "frame grab" examples; I was mostly interested in drawing (computer drawing in particular).

Quaintance cites two essays, Giampaolo Bianconi's GIFABILITY (Rhizome, 2012) and Rourke's The Doctrine of the Similar (GIF GIF GIF) (MachineMachine, 2011). Again, both of these are focused on GIFs as sampling or appropriation, although Rourke gives a few examples of original animation (mostly in what he calls the "classic" category). It's unfortunate that for all these writers GIFs came of age only when they were able to imitate video!

Curbed Convolution (new Bandcamp release)

Am pleased to announce a new Bandcamp release titled Curbed Convolution.

Liner notes by "Ralph Frisson, Unfrozen Jazz Critic":

The redacted particles of modern music ... No vocals (this is not Phil Collins) ... Puns, applied repetition ...Cultivated noise blasts and fragments of rave dreams ... Arithmetical organization, no hidden tricks, every track and decision is audible ... Groovebox paradiddles ... Bass so deep it can't be heard on your phone or laptop ... Punk atavism ... Synth modules, default beats from pricy hobby kaffeeklatches ... Concise, no elaboration or indulgent jamming ... This is ... Curbed Convolution.

Your support in the form of buying the LPs or songs is very encouraging, but all the material can be streamed. A cassette version is available!

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