"Collage Art"

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I originated none of the art in the gif above. I created the gif by taking pieces of other people's art and reassembling it into a new context. Disassemble, reassemble, animate. That is my process in a nutshell. I think of it as "collage art".

I do think it is an art and there is artistry at each stage (especially the recontextualizing), but ultimately it is difficult to take real ownership of the finished product because I'm not the original creator of all the elements and gifs are this ephemeral internet thing.

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Anyone can post or repost them. They're admired for a few seconds before people move on.

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It's like digital graffiti.

Like street artists, you can use your artistic tools to get paid in other media, but the street art itself resists monetization (unless you're Banksy). It exists in the world and the wild, to be admired or ignored freely.

I have made so many gifs over the years and they all sort of just float out there in the digital soup of the internet. Most of them entirely disposable. Some of them pretty cool. But it's not like I'm ever going to get a deal to publish a coffee table book of gifs. Or have an art gallery show of my gifs.

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And honestly, most of what I do is rank amateur hour by a hobbyist with just enough self-taught skills to MacGyver something together.

Check out some people who are doing crazier things with gifs here:

https://creativemarket.com/blog/the-30-best-animated-gif-artists-on-the-web

http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/gif-graffiti-finally-gets-an-online-art-gallery