Animated GIFs: The Birth of a Medium | Off Book | PBS

GIFs are one of the oldest image formats used on the web. Throughout
their history, they have served a huge variety of purposes, from
functional to entertainment. Now, 25 years after the first GIF was
created, they are experiencing an explosion of interest and innovation
that is pushing them into the terrain of art. In this episode of Off
Book, we chart their history, explore the hotbed of GIF creativity on
Tumblr, and talk to two teams of GIF artists who are evolving the form
into powerful new visual experiences.

Featuring:

Patrick Davison, MemeFactory
TopherChris, Tumblr
Pamela Reed and Matthew Rader, Reed+Rader
Jamie Beck and Kevin Burg, Cinemagraphs

Story Development: Mike Rugnetta, Internet Culture Researcher, MemeFactory

GIFs by:

The Internet. We wish we could attribute all the GIFs we used, but we
aren't even sure if that would be possible!

But...a special thanks to:
http://www.mr-gif.com
@textfiles
http://dvdp.tumblr.com
http://xcopy.tumblr.com
http:///iwdrm.tumblr.com

Please let us know if you see your work and want attribution!

Music by:

Mindthings: http://www.jamendo.com/en/artist/mindthings
Space Frequencies: http://www.jamendo.com/en/artist/Space_frequencies
Casanelli: http://www.jamendo.com/en/artist/Casanelli
Shamil Elvenheim: http://www.jamendo.com/en/artist/shamil/
Kevin Macleod: http://www.incompetech.com

Follow Off Book:

Twitter: @pbsoffbook
Tumblr: http://pbsarts.tumblr.com/

Produced by Kornhaber Brown: http://www.kornhaberbrown.com

[MUSIC]

GIFs were established as a free and
usable part of the web.

>> GIFs are great because
it's a low-barrier of entry.

Anybody can play around, and it's fun.

>> Animated GIF for

us was just a photograph that
could move and existed forever.

>> This is a photograph
that is still live.

And so we were already thinking beyond
the limitations of the filename.

[MUSIC]

An animated GIF is an image
that's been encoded using

the Graphics Interchange Format.

Where it has multiple frames
encoded into a single image file.

And a web browser or
other piece of software will play those

images back in animated
sequence automatically.

The original GIF specification
came out in 1987.

Early example of GIFs
that you see are flames.

Flames are very popular.

And the waving American
flag is all over the place.

Most notoriously is
the under construction GIF.

But then by the time you get to 95, 96,
you get the release of the Netscape

browser and these web browsers that
can automatically animate them.

And all of a sudden,
you see this new spike in popularity.

But following that, there's this
sudden division between the Web 1.0 of

the 70s and 80s and 90s and
then Web 2.0 of the 2000s moving forward.

So the idea of using GIFs
becomes way less fashionable.

But around 2007, 2008,
popularity is swinging back up.

People then start to realize that you can
use GIFs for tons of different things.

Now that we're in 2011, 2012,
there's more GIFs online.

But you also have way
more places to put them.

Things like Reddit and Tumblr, WordPress,
even Twitter to a certain degree.

So we're seeing actually
this postmodern GIFs.

And the tools for
GIF creation are becoming more widespread.

[MUSIC]
>> GIFs can be anything.

But what unites GIFs is
that they're short and

they are something that most Tumblr
users can create themselves.

People are sharing more.

And I think Tumblr definitely
has a part to that.

Humans really like repetition.

We feel comfortable with it.

And sometimes just the longer you watch
something, the funnier it gets or

it will actually change meanings.

You have the glitch art.

You have pixel art, TV, movies.

And you have stuff that you
can't even really categorize.

I think it's mostly on people
driving the form definitely because

it enhances their online persona.

Just being able to make some
of those makes you so cool.

It's uncharted territory right now.

And I think really anything
has the possibility,

the potential of being reformed.

But certainly around animated GIFs,
we've seen a transformation.

We've seen them go from just
people taking TV shows.

We've seen people making original stuff
with mashups between video games and

movie characters, and even Tumblr memes.

I think there's other new art
forms waiting to be discovered in

there that we just
haven't figured out yet.

[MUSIC]

>> So we're doing fashion editorials and
that's all, magazines and

things like that.

And the fashion world really
didn't latch onto the Internet.

So we wanted to push that.

>> It makes sense that the web is there.

Why put a still picture online?

The image can now move.

>> So instead of making still pictures,
you would make animated pictures.

And they would just go
on infinitely forever.

>> Everyone always describes
our work as creepy.

>> What's creepy about it?

>> But our work is very playful.

>> [LAUGH]
>> So I mean,

I think the two biggest integrations is,
one, the web.

We work off the memes and
memes are in our work.

>> They're just a kid making
something funny with their friend and

tossing it up online because they can.

>> And then that's where the best
memes come from, these accidents.

But besides that, in video games.

>> It lends itself to video game culture,
like playing game and

blowing people up on the moon, and
slaying dragons, and things like that.

It's just this idea that
you could be anything and-

>> You can become anyone, yeah.

>> Go anywhere.

I mean, these are possible in games.

>> We get bored really, really quick.

And it's always about doing
the next thing and technology.

And it used to be that art
was in museums on walls.

And now, all of a sudden, with this
thing of the web and art on screens,

all of a sudden, you go to the MoMA and
there's a screen with art on it.

So we just wanna be there.

[MUSIC]

>> I think there's opportunities with
this kind of hybrid medium to show people

something they've never seen before.

To have these moments that
can just exist forever.

>> So
with this little magical warp of time,

we could live within
a moment within that moment.

To dream of something and
then create it in a camera.

And share it with people, and
let them dream with you just for a moment.

>> It allows a moment to live on.

And there's something
fascinating about that.

>> Whatever that one thing is that is
alive is what your eyes gonna go to.

It sets the emotional impact of
what the cinemagraph will be.

>> It's a big creative decision for
us what moment to focus on.

>> We have a cinemagraph
called Anna Sees Everything.

She's watching the show and
it's like a little portrait of her.

This is what she does for a living.

>> So like watching
the footage of Bill Cunningham.

He doesn't take a picture of
every model that walks by.

>> And when he likes them,
he likes it, he shoots it.

When he doesn't, he doesn't, and
he doesn't even think about it.

>> So we get to learn something
in watching somebody for

hours on end while we work on it.

We understand them.

>> It's so voyeuristic.

You look when you feel
like you should look away.

But then you can watch it, and so
then you can watch it some more.

And it's like.

>> The simplicity of it
feels really beautiful.

And we see it as
an evolution of photography.

If you think of all the ways
that photography is displayed,

these are areas that we wanna go into.

>> There's the parts of it that are alive.

And you can choose to engage
in depth into the art.

Or you can choose to just glance at it and
it's there as in this photograph.

>> And it's essentially something
you've never seen before.

>> Who are those people for

whom like they think in GIFs or
they almost speak in GIFs.

And I think once you get to that point,
yeah, sure, it's art.

>> The idea of art has changed.

>> And we've always seen what
we can get away with, it's fun.

>> When we started making these,
we were calling them animated GIFs.

But it was so much more than that.

>> It's just too new.

And I love being a part of this at
a time when we're just figuring it out.

[MUSIC]

>> We should say GIF.

>> It's not a GIF, it's a JIF.

>> It's a JIF.

>> JIF is how I learned it first.

>> The founder of the format of JIF,
the CompuServe guy.

>> This is an ancient
Internet history here.

>> He said, choosy developers
choose JIF like the peanut butter.

>> We can talk about why you
should say GIF because it doesn't

sound like peanut butter.

>> Let's find this guy.

My understanding is that
this guy prefers JIF.

>> So you gotta represent for the creator.

>> I say we gotta go with
the inventor of the format.

>> Jraphics.

>> [LAUGH]
>> Everyone says GIF.

>> It's JIF.