Saatchi Art, the Saatchi Gallery, and Google+ just announced the winners of their first-ever Motion Photography Prize. “Motion Photography” is apparently the high-brow version of a GIF, those low-brow, low-tech repeating videos long enjoyed by Tumblr gurls and basement dwelling neckbeards, and more recently, everyone. They've also already been kind of a thing in the art world—the Pittsburgh collective VIA launched its intense 2014 T.GIF tournament last month and we hosted our own new media competition with an emphasis on GIFs, the ERROR 415 Award, last year—but a spot in Saatchi most definitely marks a significant step towards being adopted in high art circles.
Saatchi's line up of jurors was also impressive, including Tracey Emin, Shezad Dawood, Cindy Sherman, and Baz Luhrmann. More than 4,000 people from 52 countries submitted their “motion photography” (ahem, GIFs) to the competition. The top prize went to nail artist (and Brooklyn-based Tumblr gurl) Christina Rinaldi for her submission of a window washer (above). For her “motion photo,” she’ll be featured on Saatchi Art, exhibit at Saatchi’s London gallery, and “take the trip of a lifetime with the photographer/filmmaker of her choice.”
Saatchi's line up of jurors was also impressive, including Tracey Emin, Shezad Dawood, Cindy Sherman, and Baz Luhrmann. More than 4,000 people from 52 countries submitted their “motion photography” (ahem, GIFs) to the competition. The top prize went to nail artist (and Brooklyn-based Tumblr gurl) Christina Rinaldi for her submission of a window washer (above). For her “motion photo,” she’ll be featured on Saatchi Art, exhibit at Saatchi’s London gallery, and “take the trip of a lifetime with the photographer/filmmaker of her choice.”
The animated GIF as art: Google puts six loopy images on display - This GIF was crafted by the artist (and extreme nail painter) Christina Rinaldi, who -- through sheer coincidence -- helped us to redesign the Engadget site a few years back. It shows a window cleaner doing his thing in New York, and was created from a bunch of still images that were taken on an iPhone 5 and then edited as a stack inside Photoshop. Christina makes around three of these little videos each day, and for her it's all about escaping the restrictions of regular storytelling:
"The GIF actually starts from the bottom, with the window cleaner starting to move from the bottom of his sweep. For me, that's a subtle thing, but it's the biggest difference between this and film. With film you expect a beginning and an end and some kind of climax, but with this it's just a cycle and everything depends on where you catch it."
"The GIF actually starts from the bottom, with the window cleaner starting to move from the bottom of his sweep. For me, that's a subtle thing, but it's the biggest difference between this and film. With film you expect a beginning and an end and some kind of climax, but with this it's just a cycle and everything depends on where you catch it."
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