INSA Space GIF-ITTI

British artist, INSA’s GIF-ITTI is a revolutionary way to engage with the public sphere, where online meets street art and can reached unprecedented numbers of viewers worldwide.

His psychedelic works are painted on layer by layer, each being photographed before they are re-painted and then finally turned into gifs to be shared on Tumblr. His most recent ambitious creation takes it one step further, creating a 14,000 square metre mural on the ground in Brazil, photographed from a satellite 4 times.

The result is a staggering and inspirational view from space: A unique piece of digital art.

"[The] internet has changed our view on art," INSA says in his video documenting the process of his new work. "I wanted to cross both worlds and make work that existed in online space even more than it existed in real space."

Augmented Hand Series

Hands. Deformed and mutated, fingers are added or subtracted with bones that bend strangely or palms that grow and shrink in time with one’s breathing. It is hard for one to imagine our hands in these different forms, but the Augmented Hand Series promises its audiences exactly that experience of transformation.

Contemporary artists, Golan Levin, Chris Sugrue and Kyle McDonald’s real time, interactive software systems allow its users to see for themselves what it might be like to have hands that are a little less like their own. The system appears to be simple, consisting of a box into which one can put their hand in and a touchscreen that allows participants to select a transformation from about twenty different options. The experience is rather uncanny, as audiences are forced to encounter an image that is both familiar and strange at the same time.

This transformation of a hand is so fascinating as it reignites a sense of wonder and exploration, while also creating a sense of disturbance. We use our hands to do so many things. What would it be like if we had meandering fingers? Or if all our fingers were made the same length. How would we renegotiate our relationship with the objects and the worlds around us?

Milos Rajkovic

Serbian artist, Milos Rajkovic creates eerily poignant and dystopian socio-political gifs that visually elaborates on the social injustices in our contemporary society. Anti-capitalist themes revolve around technology, materialism and class-struggle are embodied by gifs. depicting (amongst other bizarre and witty creations) a dead businessman by a computer screen, penetrated by a tree growing from the ground and a Ronald McDonald figure with a bag on it’s head, oblivious to the pile of waste created by the fast food industry.

In many ways, we can see resemblance in style and process between Rajovic and street art legend, Banksy who touched minds and souls when he too harnessed a very accessible and public medium (like gifs.) using street walls.

The form hovers between a video and static picture. Its repetitive nature makes it a perfect medium for contemporary artists to make memorable political statements that speak to the more visually receptive generation.

Dina Kelberman

Can blogging be artistic? Can a blog be art?

For Dina Kelberman, it certainly can be.

Dina Kelberman is a Baltimore based artist who works in a wide variety of media. One of these mediums is the web, or more specifically, Tumblr. Kelberman periodically uploads batches of images or videos, which are displayed in a orderly manner on her blog. Together, they form a rather strange collection of images, ranging from photographs of egg yolks to those of knitted fruits. At first glance, Kelberman’s process or blog space is not unlike other Tumblrs. She seems to be doing exactly what other Tumblr users do. Upload pictures they have some sort of connection with onto their blogs, but both her process and blog deviate from the other Tumblr tendencies in significant ways.

While most Tumblr blogs are archives of some sort, Kelberman’s is a collection of very specific images. They are united through visual similarities. Images and videos posted on her blog share similarities in form, colour or composition with at least one other post on her blog. Furthermore, these images are found on the same platform - Google Image Search. ‘I’m Google’ was born out of the artists tendency to spend long hours exploring google image searches and collecting the photos she found beautiful. The presents this experience in a visual form. Kelberman’s Tumblr clearly highlights the manner in which the internet allows for us to drift from one topic or object to another, just based on a simple (possibly visual) connection.

Interestingly, ‘I’m Google’ is coded differently from other Tumblr blogs as well. Upon clicking a post, visitors would be taken to a page hosted by Google. Kelberman guides her audiences to the the very search facility that helped her find the images in the first place, encouraging her audiences to partake in the process themselves. The linked page also clarifies the possible original source and context for the visitor, allowing them to understand the images on their own terms as well.

Kelberman’s carefully constructed space and self-conscious reflection on the act of exploring and collecting images on the internet is key in separating this blog from others on Tumblr. Art or not, it is certainly an interesting online space and we can’t wait to see what the artist uploads onto it next.

Ying Gao

The garments designed by Ying Gao are situated in the technological rather than textile realm. She creates fashion that is interactive and conceptual, challenging hierarchical boundaries within the art world and developing hybrid discourses of culture.

‘[No]where [Now]here’ is a project featuring two interactive dresses using photoluminescent thread and imbedded eye tracking technology, is activated by spectators' gaze, inspired by the essay entitled "Esthétique de la disparition" (The aesthetic of disappearance), by Paul Virilio (1979):

"Absence often occurs at breakfast time – the tea cup dropped, then spilled on the table being one of its most common consequences. Absence lasts but a few seconds, its beginning and end are sudden. However closed to outside impressions, the senses are awake. The return is as immediate as the departure, the suspended word or movement is picked up where it was left off as conscious time automatically reconstructs itself, thus becoming continuous and free of any apparent interruption."

A photograph is said to be “spoiled” by blinking eyes – here however, the concept of presence and of disappearance are questioned, as the experience of chiaroscuro (clarity/obscurity) is achieved through an unfixed gaze.

These are dresses and art objects existing in the real world, transforming the wearer’s waking and walking life into an artistic statement.