Alchemical Underbelly
The animated GIF format was never meant to be
harnessed in the manner it is on Illumination Gallery. My animated GIFs emphasize &
lose themselves in texture. When CompuServe developed the GIF in 1987 it did so to allow its online users to
incorporate color graphics into their files. Two years later they
developed the animated GIF format. The original aim with animated GIFs,
in those dial-up modem days of the Internet, was to create easily
downloadable web animations. Animated GIFs were expressly developed for
a basic flat approach to animation. Exploring rich textures proved the
antithesis of such an approach. Limitations of the format forced rich
textures to turn in on themselves. Yet this "limitation" appealed to
me...artistically, alchemically.
For me art and magic are one. The algorithmically derived process that
shapes texture offers insights into the alchemical underbelly of
creativity. True beauty is magical. The root image of the animated GIF
running above was sampled from a photograph of Velocity
Chyaldd, who is truly beautiful.
© 2009 Peter
Schmideg