Graffiti artist INSA made a massive animated GIF
January 24, 2015 9:44 PM Subscribe
A few days ago, Graffiti artist INSA made a massive animated painting in Rio de Janeiro. Over four days he painted an area of 154,774 square feet (14,379 square meters) with the help of 20 assistants. The painting states were captured by a satellite to create this GIF, the biggest ever.
Though he does have some pretty heavy satellite service.
posted by clavdivs at 10:04 PM on January 24, 2015
posted by clavdivs at 10:04 PM on January 24, 2015
Guy totally missed the opportunity to make it the largest ever cat GIF.
posted by Jimbob at 10:59 PM on January 24, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by Jimbob at 10:59 PM on January 24, 2015 [6 favorites]
More like he had a four day gig with a whiskey company to do a commercial where he appeared to labor over a FOUR FRAME
"animation" (if you can call it that) of a swirling Juicy Fruit kaleidoscope somewhere in wherever-the-hell Rio.
posted by ReeMonster at 11:09 PM on January 24, 2015 [8 favorites]
"animation" (if you can call it that) of a swirling Juicy Fruit kaleidoscope somewhere in wherever-the-hell Rio.
posted by ReeMonster at 11:09 PM on January 24, 2015 [8 favorites]
Yes. This is art in today's technocentric world.
Thank you for sharing this.
posted by infini at 11:09 PM on January 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
Thank you for sharing this.
posted by infini at 11:09 PM on January 24, 2015 [1 favorite]
All that work and it's a fucken heart pattern?
posted by Joseph Gurl at 11:16 PM on January 24, 2015 [12 favorites]
posted by Joseph Gurl at 11:16 PM on January 24, 2015 [12 favorites]
I was on board until I realized that the same guy saying "I think artwork can speak a lot louder if it's not narrowed by the identity of the artist" is doing corporate-sponsored work? That's pretty much the gold standard of things that muffle the voice in art. Maybe that explains the bland heart pattern, it's simple to paint and unlikely to offend?
posted by JauntyFedora at 11:41 PM on January 24, 2015 [13 favorites]
posted by JauntyFedora at 11:41 PM on January 24, 2015 [13 favorites]
This does nothing for me. His gif paintings were more impressive, but ultimately just gifs.
posted by flippant at 11:55 PM on January 24, 2015
posted by flippant at 11:55 PM on January 24, 2015
I hope the folks doing the art got paid decently and had fun. The concept is interesting, even if the execution is a bit underwhelming.
posted by maxwelton at 11:56 PM on January 24, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by maxwelton at 11:56 PM on January 24, 2015 [3 favorites]
Is there supposed to be a link to the GIF from the text "this GIF" as it isn't working for me? I watched the video and saw the quick zoom to animation towards the end, but I wanted to see the actual four-frame GIF from the satellite pics on its own. Even searching for the story elsewhere seems to just lead to the video. I was curious if they actually got the scale right so it is visible from the satellite pic or if it was meant to be zoomed in a lot like the video.
posted by This_Will_Be_Good at 11:58 PM on January 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by This_Will_Be_Good at 11:58 PM on January 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
the same guy saying "I think artwork can speak a lot louder if it's not narrowed by the identity of the artist" is doing corporate-sponsored work
Perhaps 500 years from now we will all be celebrating Ballantine as the Medici of the 21st century.
no, not seriously.
posted by kisch mokusch at 12:32 AM on January 25, 2015 [2 favorites]
Perhaps 500 years from now we will all be celebrating Ballantine as the Medici of the 21st century.
no, not seriously.
posted by kisch mokusch at 12:32 AM on January 25, 2015 [2 favorites]
When you have something that could never have been viewed by humans (and was destroyed as soon as it was made); the creation of which required massive corporate investment; that exists only as a cycling group of pixels - what you have may be art, but it's certainly not graffiti.
posted by Joe in Australia at 12:38 AM on January 25, 2015 [9 favorites]
posted by Joe in Australia at 12:38 AM on January 25, 2015 [9 favorites]
Da Vinci builds a ballon to sketch selfies with the moon.
posted by clavdivs at 12:59 AM on January 25, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by clavdivs at 12:59 AM on January 25, 2015 [4 favorites]
Stunt art is stunted and stunty. A painting on a grain of rice and viewed with a magnifying glass, or on a parking lot and viewed from a satellite, is interesting only if the same painting would be interesting done on a more conventional scale and hung on a wall. But if Ballantine's sponsors me with a bottle or two (mefimail me, B.), I could be back with a different Stay True opinion.
posted by pracowity at 1:08 AM on January 25, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by pracowity at 1:08 AM on January 25, 2015 [2 favorites]
I do believe you're objecting to the whole aesthetic basis of graffiti, pracowity?
I guess you could paint something like this into a gallery, maybe next to one of the security cameras they tend to have, maybe without the permission of the gallery owners... but then, at best, you're critiquing the institution of the art gallery, rather than public CCTV.
Graffiti is best understood as conceptual art deployed such that it must find its audience more or less unassisted. The works that get noticed in such constraints, without overt commercial backing, are particularly good examples of both art and social engineering. Does it even make sense to draw a line between those? Should it?
posted by LogicalDash at 1:20 AM on January 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
I guess you could paint something like this into a gallery, maybe next to one of the security cameras they tend to have, maybe without the permission of the gallery owners... but then, at best, you're critiquing the institution of the art gallery, rather than public CCTV.
Graffiti is best understood as conceptual art deployed such that it must find its audience more or less unassisted. The works that get noticed in such constraints, without overt commercial backing, are particularly good examples of both art and social engineering. Does it even make sense to draw a line between those? Should it?
posted by LogicalDash at 1:20 AM on January 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
Graffiti is best understood as conceptual art deployed such that it must find its audience more or less unassisted writing or drawings scribbled, scratched, or sprayed illicitly on a wall or other surface in a public place.
It's ridiculous to call this graffiti
posted by sidereal at 1:35 AM on January 25, 2015 [2 favorites]
It's ridiculous to call this graffiti
posted by sidereal at 1:35 AM on January 25, 2015 [2 favorites]
Actually I find it entirely plausible they didn't get permission from the owner of the, what, parking lot? that they used for this.
posted by LogicalDash at 1:41 AM on January 25, 2015
posted by LogicalDash at 1:41 AM on January 25, 2015
I'm sure the lawyers at Ballantine's gave them the thumbs up.
posted by sidereal at 2:09 AM on January 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by sidereal at 2:09 AM on January 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
You think Ballantine's owned that parking lot? Okay?
posted by LogicalDash at 2:56 AM on January 25, 2015
posted by LogicalDash at 2:56 AM on January 25, 2015
To be fair, the only place I saw the word "graffiti" was in the description of the artist. The painting is described as a painting.
Although as long as we're piling on INSA (which I first saw as NASA, making the satellite thing make more sense), I bet Ballentines' (or their ad agency's) accounting department knows his real name. Also, an airplane would have done just as well as a satellite. Although in this day and age, a satellite may be cheaper.
I still thought it was neat, though. I hope it inspires more of this sort of thing.
posted by TedW at 3:05 AM on January 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
Although as long as we're piling on INSA (which I first saw as NASA, making the satellite thing make more sense), I bet Ballentines' (or their ad agency's) accounting department knows his real name. Also, an airplane would have done just as well as a satellite. Although in this day and age, a satellite may be cheaper.
I still thought it was neat, though. I hope it inspires more of this sort of thing.
posted by TedW at 3:05 AM on January 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
I lol'd when they accidentally got a side-boob view of the artist and put a black rectangle over his eyes.
posted by chavenet at 3:38 AM on January 25, 2015
posted by chavenet at 3:38 AM on January 25, 2015
My first thought is "Tofutti" and then Cheez-Whiz
posted by aydeejones at 4:05 AM on January 25, 2015
posted by aydeejones at 4:05 AM on January 25, 2015
Is it just me, or is there more art in this "making of" video than the actual project itself? The latter of which is novel, I suppose, but not exactly mind blowing.
posted by zardoz at 4:40 AM on January 25, 2015
posted by zardoz at 4:40 AM on January 25, 2015
Yes, it's performance art: an advertisement disguising itself in the simulacrum of documentary.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 5:14 AM on January 25, 2015 [11 favorites]
posted by I-Write-Essays at 5:14 AM on January 25, 2015 [11 favorites]
You've got to keep them separate till the oven's ready, use a whisk.
posted by LogicalDash at 5:14 AM on January 25, 2015
posted by LogicalDash at 5:14 AM on January 25, 2015
Technically speaking, this gif isn't any larger than any other gif, right? I suppose it's subject matter is big, but I've seen a dozn timelapse gifs of the milky way cycling through the night sky, so I think the galaxy would qualify as larger.
posted by Think_Long at 6:53 AM on January 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Think_Long at 6:53 AM on January 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
I think there could be something interesting in creating art that's meant to be viewed through the lens of the security and surveillance apparatus that exists in the world. It might even be particularly interesting that it be graffiti, since graffiti itself is so heavily criminalized.
This project, whether because of the corporate sponsorship or because the artist's thoughts aren't that deep or don't run in that direction, just isn't that interesting. The image is banal and doesn't really speak anything to anyone other than "We spent a ton of money to create art the kind of art a 12 year old girl would draw on her math book."
posted by jacquilynne at 6:57 AM on January 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
This project, whether because of the corporate sponsorship or because the artist's thoughts aren't that deep or don't run in that direction, just isn't that interesting. The image is banal and doesn't really speak anything to anyone other than "We spent a ton of money to create art the kind of art a 12 year old girl would draw on her math book."
posted by jacquilynne at 6:57 AM on January 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
I always thought of "GIF" as referring to a particular file format, not as referring to the fact of low-frame-number animation (which is how it seems to be being used here). Has GIF escaped more generally this way? Do people refer to animation flipbooks as GIFS, for example? Or is this just an odd use of the word?
posted by yoink at 7:16 AM on January 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by yoink at 7:16 AM on January 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
B3ta Image Challenge in 3... 2... 1...
(although that has been done before. Repeatedly.
Best line from that last link - And this time - unlike the previous examples of Edinburgh’s giant poo and Rotherham’s arse - it’s not Google Maps that has the rudeness, but instead Microsoft’s Virtual Earth."
How many of these things are there? What will the neighbours think? No wonder the Star Child looked quite so bemused at the end of 2001..)
posted by Devonian at 7:28 AM on January 25, 2015
(although that has been done before. Repeatedly.
Best line from that last link - And this time - unlike the previous examples of Edinburgh’s giant poo and Rotherham’s arse - it’s not Google Maps that has the rudeness, but instead Microsoft’s Virtual Earth."
How many of these things are there? What will the neighbours think? No wonder the Star Child looked quite so bemused at the end of 2001..)
posted by Devonian at 7:28 AM on January 25, 2015
That is an ass-ton of paint.
posted by gottabefunky at 8:59 AM on January 25, 2015
posted by gottabefunky at 8:59 AM on January 25, 2015
I wonder what all that paint does to the water supply.
posted by desjardins at 9:04 AM on January 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by desjardins at 9:04 AM on January 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
Tough crowd!
posted by Curious Artificer at 9:07 AM on January 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Curious Artificer at 9:07 AM on January 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
Tough crowd!
Indeed! I didn't even realize there was a company involved at all until I came into the thread. This type of "animated" grafiti is part of INSA's bag, and he did a huuuge one! Cool! Yeah it was a simple design, the damn thing covered 3.5 acres!
posted by stinkfoot at 9:21 AM on January 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
Indeed! I didn't even realize there was a company involved at all until I came into the thread. This type of "animated" grafiti is part of INSA's bag, and he did a huuuge one! Cool! Yeah it was a simple design, the damn thing covered 3.5 acres!
posted by stinkfoot at 9:21 AM on January 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
This is cybertwee hyper-futurism manifested. I fucking love every damn bit of it, the gross and the fascinating.
posted by Annika Cicada at 9:39 AM on January 25, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Annika Cicada at 9:39 AM on January 25, 2015 [2 favorites]
notagif.mp4
posted by aaronetc at 9:46 AM on January 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by aaronetc at 9:46 AM on January 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
Yup. Tough crowd. Of course it's a very simple design. It had to be done very quickly in order to be photographed properly by the frikken satelite. You were maybe expecting Picasso's Guernica? It's an animation drawn by humans and photographed from space. It's pretty goddamn neato, even if it is a whiskey ad.
posted by Cookiebastard at 9:55 AM on January 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Cookiebastard at 9:55 AM on January 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
Indeed! I didn't even realize there was a company involved at all until I came into the thread.
"Ballantine's Presents" wasn't a give away?
I really hated the whole style of the video - the slow motion walking, the overhead cam, the pretentious voice over - but held out hope that he would create something cool and interesting.
I was actually shocked at how banal it was. They spent a lot of fucking money to paint some hearts. And photographed it from space ... sure. But these days I can log onto Google Earth and look at pictures of my garden from space. That last part isn't so unique these days.
posted by kanewai at 12:04 PM on January 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
"Ballantine's Presents" wasn't a give away?
I really hated the whole style of the video - the slow motion walking, the overhead cam, the pretentious voice over - but held out hope that he would create something cool and interesting.
I was actually shocked at how banal it was. They spent a lot of fucking money to paint some hearts. And photographed it from space ... sure. But these days I can log onto Google Earth and look at pictures of my garden from space. That last part isn't so unique these days.
posted by kanewai at 12:04 PM on January 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
"Ballantine's Presents" wasn't a give away?
Ha, I guess not... I just clicked and watched the video, wasn't paying attention to much else.
posted by stinkfoot at 12:23 PM on January 25, 2015
Ha, I guess not... I just clicked and watched the video, wasn't paying attention to much else.
posted by stinkfoot at 12:23 PM on January 25, 2015
You were maybe expecting Picasso's Guernica?
Picasso's Guernica in animated form photographed from space?
Yes please!
posted by yoink at 12:27 PM on January 25, 2015
Picasso's Guernica in animated form photographed from space?
Yes please!
posted by yoink at 12:27 PM on January 25, 2015
It is art! Nice concept, satellite views of hearts rather than your back yard barbeque, spirited light happy, OK.
posted by Oyéah at 4:13 PM on January 25, 2015
posted by Oyéah at 4:13 PM on January 25, 2015
he should have gone to Chile and made the geoglyphs walk around...
posted by ennui.bz at 4:29 PM on January 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by ennui.bz at 4:29 PM on January 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
>It is art! Nice concept, satellite views of hearts rather than your back yard barbeque, spirited light happy, OK.
How is this in any way in opposition to a back yard barbecue? What makes you think the team didn't celebrate the completion of the project by grilling the flesh of a dozen herd animals? Just because you've stumbled across a rock doesn't mean you can sharpen your axe on it, Oyéah.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 7:07 PM on January 25, 2015
How is this in any way in opposition to a back yard barbecue? What makes you think the team didn't celebrate the completion of the project by grilling the flesh of a dozen herd animals? Just because you've stumbled across a rock doesn't mean you can sharpen your axe on it, Oyéah.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 7:07 PM on January 25, 2015
> I wanted to see the actual four-frame GIF from the satellite pics on its own
Google "insa rio gif". The Mashable and Telegraph links in the search result have the gif, for example. Prepare to be underwhelmed by its banality. They did the right thing by focusing on the creative effort rather than the end result.
posted by Autumn Leaf at 7:07 PM on January 25, 2015
Google "insa rio gif". The Mashable and Telegraph links in the search result have the gif, for example. Prepare to be underwhelmed by its banality. They did the right thing by focusing on the creative effort rather than the end result.
posted by Autumn Leaf at 7:07 PM on January 25, 2015
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posted by clavdivs at 10:03 PM on January 24, 2015 [1 favorite]