Back in 2015 GIF IT Up held a contest that invited people to use openly licensed and public domain material from the DPLA, DigitalNZ, Trove and Europeana to make animated GIFs. As with any public call, the results were mixed but this one by Maarten Brinkerink from Rotterdam stood out to us, namely because it didn’t make any sense. What was this man doing with a telephone, Google, and a Vermeer?
It turns out the reason it doesn’t make that much sense is because the impetus wasn’t more complicated than combining historical news reel footage with works of art. Brinkerink’s statement:
As an open content and data enthusiast I find GIFs to be a light-weight way to contribute to creative reuse of our shared cultural heritage myself. The first GIF I’ve created is called The Great Gulp and is a mashup of historical newsreel footage and a famous Japanese print. The second is called ‘The Problem of the Yellow Milkmaid’, referencing a paper on the subject of open data. I’ve tried to play with the idea of GLAMs and their relevance online. It again mashes up historical newsreel footage with a famous artwork. Disclaimer: In my day job I’m working at the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision. I’ve reused newsreels from our open media platform Open Images.
So there you have it. Not too much too these GIFs (we’ve posted The Great Gulp below), but that’s okay. Beer chugging on the water is still a fine way to head into the weekend.
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