Blog #4

Farhan Zakir

Blog #4 

Museum of the Moving Image

5/7/18

Gif exhibit

          The Momi and the experience that comes with the exhibits puts our modern day form of communication in a new perspective. I wanted to focus on the exhibit with gifs. This exhibit features various gifs from different artists, but the one that caught my eye was the gif with the three hand drawn creatures sitting around a table. The motion that the gif creates is very minimal. Its possibly only two frames; however the mood and feeling of "scared" is very heightened by this movement. I really enjoyed this piece becuase its minimal movement somehow added to the feeling of being scared. Furthermore, it told a small story and created an entire scenario coupled with the other gifs that the artists made. 

          The use of gifs today is usually centered around memes. While it does add a layer of communication in that sense, its easy to forget that gifs can also be used to tell stories in ways that still photos can not. The other gifs I saw in the exhibit did not really tell a story, but rather create emotion. This is usually what memes do now. They emphasise a notion or feeling via image. The hand drawn gif stood out in this sense becuase it created emotion as well as told a story. Overall, this exhibit proved to me that existing communication methods can be used in unexpected and different ways.