The Affect of Animated GIFs (Tom Moody, Petra Cortright, Lorna Mills) – Art and Education
Since the early 1990s, artists have chosen the internet as a medium, an environment and a forum. While some internet artists also maintain a gallery practice, the conditions and conventions that inform meaning in online art remain in many ways distinct from those of the off-line artworld. Internet art — inherently ephemeral and infinitely reproducible — eludes commodification and largely operates independently of the art market.[1] In the online environment where acts of creative self-expression are the norm, the boundaries between artists and not-artists that confer status and hierarchy in the gallery and museum system are largely immaterial. Even among niche groups of online practitioners who self-identify as artists, the culture of internet art regards the agency of the viewer on a par with that of the artist. In most cases, viewers are also producers. Many online artists, such as myself, operate through the medium of the blog format, which allows for a hybrid practice blending art production with art criticism, cross-promotion and dialogue.