In Sally Mackay's article The Affect of the Animated GIFs,
she argues (and counter argues) the .GIFs cannot truly be considered “art”
because more often than not, the “artist” is not intending to produce a work of
art when creating a .GIF. (But then she makes some odd counter argument stating
that “there are those who produce spectacles that demand attention, and those
who quietly go about their work hoping for a reflective viewer who will take
some time to engage”, making it seem that she is also in favor of animated
.GIFs and the quiet artists that compose them… but I digress).
I disagree that .GIFs are not truly art. But I do agree that
it does not take an artist to create one. .GIFs, I now see, are relatively easy
creatures to tame, with or without the “proper” materials, however, that does
not mean that they aren’t part of a very large pop cultural and artistic shift
going on on the internet. .GIFs are like the new picture flipbooks that were
produced in the 1880s. One could flip through the little pad and see a scene
from a movie, but that did not mean it was the movie, nor was it not artist to
embody the scene within the pad. Each .GIF created is intended to send a
message to the public about some issue, event or opinion that someone has. Is
that not art in and of itself?
These “common” everyday people are expressing themselves
through a new medium that they feel comfortable using and it is creating a new
generation of technology savvy artists, whether they are aware of it or not.
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