{ 3 comments }

mab January 27, 2015 at 10:40 pm

that giant gif-iti is a sponsored commercial right? but then comes ‘just close your eyes and think of david hockney’ – erm, apple and oranges?… perhaps it’s not that animated gifs are inherently art or even craft, but techno-technique, with the right artist they can be an art practice exploring collage and montage (man bartlett comes to mind) lots of gif artists on giphy for jonathan jones to champion including one of my digital favorites, dvdp http://giphy.com/search/dvdp/

Dappledoze January 28, 2015 at 10:36 am

Like the best ad campaigns, this is not really a commentary on anything, just sort of an expression of brandvertorial joie de vivre. It’s nice that we can look a satellite photo and not be reminded of drone murders or the Iraq War (what’s that moving box in the top-left corner? seems suspicious). I would expect a street artist to force this type of allusion, really rub your face in it, so cheers to “Insa” for playing this one by the (brand) book. Three cheers for David Hockney too, what a great artist.

Technically this gif was sponsored by Chivas Brothers, which owns the Ballantine’s brand; likewise, Chivas is a subsidiary of Pernod Ricard, the French liquor conglomerate. The non-issue of whether it’s a “gif” or not can be solved by looking at the first 6 bytes of the file.

Luke Mon January 30, 2015 at 5:54 pm

It may be a GIF but its not an animated GIF. Its an important distinction.

Comments on this entry are closed.

Previous post:

Next post: