Google embraces high tech animation format

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us-elections-2014-5687179812536320.3-hp

This terrible GIF comes from the omnipresently self-appreciating Google search page. You might have to look at it a couple of times to realize it's not a chimney but some kind of ballot box-thing -- as in, it's election day, look at our clever depiction. (But why is it spinning, mommy?)

But notice I said GIF -- it's not HTML5 canvas whatever, which was touted a few years ago as Google's next level surpassing of cruddy old GIFs.
One blogger received a sound hazing by some of Paddy Johnson's supposedly tech-savvy commenters for suggesting that a GIF was just as good and maybe better for what Google was trying to do on the search page.
So this is kind of a nyah-nyah I told you so to those geniuses. Google bit the bullet and went back to GIFs. Let's say that again...

hat tip Dadayumn

see also Dancing Psy GIF

untweeted thoughts on ed halter's artforum paean to guthrie lonergan

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"In Search Of: Ed Halter on the Art of Guthrie Lonergan" (before it goes behind the paywall)

"...it may be the case that your interpretation of the work is entirely wrong but conceivably so influential as to color the way the work is seen even by succeeding generations, so that you may in fact both be the one to recognize an artwork's importance and the person responsible for consigning it to infinite misreading." - jeremy gilbert-rolfe (had to shorten that one -- the key word here is not so much "influential" as "wrong")

@edhalter's mind still lives in 2006 while his body is imprisoned in mall-like social media, streaming TV and apps

cory arcangel's declaration of guthrie lonergan as "our bruce nauman" touched off several pages of explaining 2006

"our bruce nauman" became a fixture of the biennale circuit -- he didn't decide at 30 that he didn't know what to do

"hacking vs defaults" ceased being relevant when all the "hackers" moved to facebook

halter and his editors may not be aware that the phrase "mere artmaking" would get you decked at the Cedar Bar

it's not enough to merely make art you have to be a jaron lanier-like pundit noting how the internet is changing culture

one way to settle a whole raft of arguments you are a party to is to convince someone to let you write an artforum cover story

some context on "defaults" 1 / 2

Lonergan's "defaults" riff intrigued when it was about software and its influence on how artists (and others) "present" in the post-gallery world. It's perhaps less interesting as a buzzword for every trope, habit, and convention of the modern era, which is the spin Halter continues to put on it. Let's not talk about art, let's talk about culture and society, realms where we are more comfortable.

collect pond park

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Photo0026

Am interested in the aesthetics of my non-smart phone's camera -- no arty filters here, and no "social" -- but I like the flattening out going on in this pic, and a hint of urban bleakness, courtesy of decisions made in the Samsung technicians' lab. This photo was taken while sitting, waiting to meet a friend at the new Postmasters gallery space a block away from this historic site.

Addendum: Am guessing that lower tier of concrete is supposed to be filled with water, a reminder of the lake that was once on this spot. It's not, just some puddles, making this park look even bleaker than it did before it was renovated a couple of years ago.

social photography after instagram

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carriage trade gallery is having its annual fundraiser, which for the past several years has been a show of cell phone photos called "Social Photography"; installment IV opens Nov. 12. I donated (i.e. bought a photo) last year and enjoyed seeing the exhibit.

Possibly the premise is dating as cell phones become smart phones and 3 x 4 inch standard sizes with point-and-hope-for-the-best aesthetics have given way to extra megapixels and more especially Instagram, where every lousy shot can be doctored with "arty filters" to look like a masterpiece.

Instagram is the elephant in the room of Social Photography IV, because of (a) The Kids (who left Facebook for it, in droves, and stayed after Facebook bought it, also in droves) and (b) Richard Prince, who put Instagram front and center in the white cube environment this year. Read Vulture's obsequious review, artnet's criticism, and ArtFCity's follow-up.

Is Instagram social photography? Yes. Is it a wildly successful model compared to say, Flickr's storage bin approach? Yes, it has supermodels artifying themselves and getting mad likes. You might hate this and want nothing to do with it, but you have to acknowledge it's the new normal for passing around photos.