GIF ART

Among the numerous consequences of the advent of the digital age, the redefinition of the boundaries between still and moving images is certainly one of the deepest. Closely connected to the changes that are now occurring in film studies and art history, this redefinition requires a rethinking of the traditional borders between cinema and photography. Adopting perspectives belonging to New Film History, media archaeology, art theory and visual studies, the present work aims at exploring the existence of a dialectical relationship between cinema and photography. This dialectic is understood in a double sense: on the one hand, as a constitutive tension between two media that are inextricably linked in shaping time, movement, immobility, instant and duration, and, on the other hand as a new paradigm in contemporary art. The dissertation is subdivided into three chapters. In the first one the dialectical relationship between movement and stillness is the key to understanding some connections between early cinema's aesthetic of attraction, chronophotography and avant-garde. The second chapter considers the emergence, since the 1990s, of artistic practices that aim at employing cinema and photography in order to reflect current aesthetic and technological conditions. The third chapter offers a critical overview of the case study of GIF art. GIF is an obsolete digital format that allows images to be produced that seem to be simultaneously still and moving; in the present work, GIF is discussed as a medium able to contradict the boundaries between still and moving images, suggesting furthermore a possible conceptual model for thinking about time and history in a discontinuous way.

CZ/
Magisterská práce se věnuje novému uměleckému směru, který je znám pod termínem GIF art. Tato forma umění stojí na základech grafického formátu Graphics interchange format, který byl definován vývojářskou firmou CompuServe na konci 80. let. Ale od doby definování standardu do současnosti se proměnily jednoduché několika bitové animace vytvořené pomocí speciálních softwarů do rozsáhlého souboru praktik, kam spadá i rozličná umělecká aktivita. Cílem této práce je tedy popsat, co přinesl onen formát GIF do oblasti nejen umění nových médií, ale i jakým způsobem pozměňuje či navazuje na předchozí mediální
a umělecké formy – fotografie, pohyblivý obraz (film, video atd.), grafický design a to především skrze teorii remediace podle J. Davida Boltera a Richarda A. Grusina. Budeme nahlížet na GIF art jako na plnohodnotnou uměleckou formu skrze principy institucionální teorie umění dle George Dickieho a procesy světa umění Arthura Danta. Práce se zaměřuje na stanovení konzistentní estetiky praktikované formátem GIF, na jejichž základě se dále pokusíme vytvořit typologii GIF artových děl. V neposlední řadě je cílem práce definovat vztah, vlastnosti, charakteristické rysy GIF artové tvorby na základech pojmů a teorií nových médií jakými jsou kyberprostor, expanded cinema, postprodukce, narativita, remix... Také se budeme věnovat i vztahu GIF artu s příbuznými uměleckými směry jakými jsou
net art, generative art a software art, čimž jej ukotvíme ještě více do vývojových
umělecko-historických kontextů.














EN/
Master thesis deals with the new artistic movement, which is known as GIF art. This art form is based on graphical format Graphics interchange format, which was defined by the developer CompuServe in the late 80s. But since the definition of the standard  till the present time there is a big turn from a few simple bit animations created using special software to the  extensive set of practices, encompassing diverse artistic activities. The aim of this work is to describe what that format GIF brought new not only in new media art but also how it modifies or builds on previous media and art forms - photography, moving image (film, video etc.), graphic design, mainly through theory of remediation by J. David Bolter and Richard
A. Grusin. We will see the GIF art as a full-fledged art form through the principles of the institutional theory of art by George Dickie and processes of the art world by Arthur Dante. The work focuses on the determination of consistent aesthetics practiced by GIF format, on the basis of which we will further attempt to develop a typology of GIF art. Finally, the aim of this work is to define the relationship, properties, characteristics of GIF art production under the concepts and theories of new media such as cyberspace, expanded cinema,
post-production , narration, remix... We will also deal with the relationship of GIF art with its closest relative artistic forms such as net art, generative art and software art, thereby anchoring it more in the developmental art-historical contexts.