the Affect of Animated GIFs - Sally McKay

I find it interesting that the patent-holder of GIFs tried to regulate their use for a while, how would you do that? They have only become easier to create as time went by.

I agree that GIFs are a kind of “mini-cinema” as Tom Moody calls them, but I would not categorize them in with JPEGs and PNGs, I find them too different to be categorized with unchanging still images.

I think Morse’s choice of “personal and disposable” to be perfect descriptors of the GIF. They are for a moment, extremely engaging, and we connect with them one at a time through our digital displays, then discard them without a second thought.

It is fascinating how an artist can make a GIF, like OptiDisc so that viewers get drawn in, and cannot describe why they are mesmerized; by making the GIF have “missing frames” that viewer’s minds fill in while watching. Weird stuff.

GIFs generally have some element of humor. Even if the subject matter is serious, or not actually funny, the effect of watching something that is generally less than 10 seconds repeat itself over and over has that affect.