GIF by Ahmed Almardi. Image courtesy of the University of Pennsylvania.
When artist Trevor Paglen shot a time capsule into space, he had longevity in mind—his project is meant to last billions of years. Inquiring aliens might want to know about us.
Not all archival projects aim at lasting for such a long time. And why should they? It only takes a few years for our wares, beliefs, or tech to seem obsolete.
Case in point: GIFs.
Through the course of my daily search for GIFs, I came across the University of Pennsylvania’s African Studies Center GIF archive. (None of the GIFs are animated.) A range of images from the 1990s fill up the archive: flags, bank notes, and beer. Many links are broken. Needless to say, this archive is in need of some attention.
For the purposes of this blog, several art GIFs make an appearance in the center’s Elmardi Archive. These GIFs show computer-based work from the early 1990s by a little-known artist from Sudan, Ahmed Elmardi. From what I can find about him online, he now lives in Tokyo and makes abstract paintings.
I’m waiting to hear back from Elmardi, in hopes of finding out more about these GIFs and why they’ve been archived. Until then, we just have to wonder, like any inquiring aliens, about the story behind these 20-year-old GIFs.
{ 1 comment }
http://imgur.com/keIs1v7 NOW youre talkin’. thanks for this, corinna :o)
Comments on this entry are closed.