There’s a lot that can be done with street art. You’ll find everything from large-scale murals to tiny, hidden additions in every urban area. However, for the most part, street art remains unmoving and static, left by the artist to be viewed as a still image.
Artist and designer INSA decided that it was time to bring motion into street art, or at least into online representation of it. He decided to blend the virtual with the real in a series he calls GIF-iti, animated photos of street art that dance before your eyes when viewed online.
The pieces are created by painting each stage of the GIF by hand in layers and photographing each layer. The layers translate to individual frames, which are then stitched together into the cycling animations seen here. While each still layer is beautiful by itself, the moving images lend a surreal, mind-bending addition to an otherwise static painting. Everything you see is hand-painted, and the only digital interference is the arrangement of the still images into animations.
INSA’s work blends the real-life phenomenon of street art with the second-hand experience of seeing things via the Internet. Street art is created and viewed out in the world. Art on the Internet provides a level of removal from the actual item or event. Because the pieces are seen differently in real life and online, the “true” nature of the art pieces becomes ambiguous. The method of viewing also raises questions of how our experience with art is changed depending on how and where we view it.
You can see more of INSA’s work on his website and blog, as well as on Tumblr.
(Via Colossal)