Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Artists Create a 1000-Year GIF Loop

Posted by timothy on from the loading-loading-loading dept.

jovius writes: Finnish artists Juha van Ingen and Janne Särkelä have developed a monumental GIF called AS Long As Possible, which loops once per 1000 years. The 12 gigabyte GIF is made of 48,140,288 numbered frames, that change about every 10 minutes. They plan to start the loop in 2017, when GIF turns 30 years old. "If nurturing a GIF loop even for 100 — let alone 3,000 years — seems an unbelievable task, how much remains of our present digital culture after that time?", van Ingen said. The artists plan to store a mother file somewhere and create many iterations of the loop in various locations — and if one fails, it may be easily synchronized with, and replaced by, another. Maybe they should use FLIF instead.

9 of 105 comments (clear)

  1. Let me be the first to point out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    BFD. Displays of sequential numbers, or randomly generated pixels that have no interest except to "contemporary ahhtists".

    1. Re:Let me be the first to point out by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Science starts with something complicated and tries to make it simple.
      Art starts with something simple and tries to make it complicated.

    2. Re:Let me be the first to point out by Joce640k · · Score: 4, Insightful

      ...and once every ten minutes? Jeez.

      I've got some funny cat GIFs that would play for a million years if I only change the image once per millennium. Can I have my prize for being clever?

      --
      No sig today...
  2. So... by minkowski76 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Was there a contest somewhere for 'Wasting Your Time In the Least Meaningful Way'? If so, these people win first place.

    1. Re:So... by PPH · · Score: 4, Funny

      What are we here on Slashdot? Chopped liver?

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
  3. OK firing up Virtual Dub by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 5, Funny

    Get the damned gif, change the frame rate and I am going to see how it all ends and post the spoiler all over the net. Ha, Ha, Ha...(-- Evil laughter while caressing a docile white cat)

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  4. Only 85 years short... by fisted · · Score: 5, Informative

    1,000 Years are 525,960,000 minutes, i.e. 52,596,000 10-minutes

    According to TFS, the thing has 48,140,288 Frames, one of which is displayed ever 10 minutes.

    So they seem to be 4,455,712 frames short of having it actually take 1000 years to complete.
    That's 85 years. ...artists... what a meta-failure.

    --
    CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
  5. You don't understand art. by mark_reh · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The long, slow, uncreative .gif file is only a tiny part of this project. The biggest piece of the project is the commentary about whether it is art, created by all of us after being manipulated by the artist into doing so. The artist's contribution to the whole work was his ability to get media attention for his project and to generate something so uncreative, even unartistic in the traditional sense, so lacking in required practice or skill, that it would surely get the ball rolling on the comments.

    In this, my one comment, I have done more work than the "artist" did for the whole project.

    It's interesting how someone's small waste of time can be snowballed into a collectively huge waste of time by so many others.

    THAT is ART, and I am pleased to have been allowed a chance to contribute to the project.

  6. Re:Very interesting concept by ClickOnThis · · Score: 4, Funny

    The concept if very interesting, however the actual GIF could have been a little more creative than just a counter.

    Maybe they could make the last frame a picture of Mickey Mouse. By the time it is displayed, the copyright on his image will have expired. Maybe.

    --
    If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.