#davidope

Davidope @dvdp

If you are as inspired by the moving images as we are, you will certainly love this article! GIF-art has its strong feeling of magic, of the picture that came alive, just like in the newspapers from Harry Potter cinematic universe. If we think this way now, can you imagine what people felt 100 years ago? And yes, there were some animated images back then.

In 1832 Belgian physicist Joseph Plateau created a device called phenakistoscope. Though the notions of this mechanism’s work principles were available earlier, Plateau is large associated with the popularization and finishing touches of the phenakistoscope. A fluent illusion of motion was achieved with a spinning cardboard disk vertically attached to a handle and images of different phases of animation concentrated around the center. These were the first steps towards a movie production, tiny steps. But can you imagine the impact of these retro GIF images? Now we can observe digitized versions of the old phenakistoscopes thanks to The Richard Balzer Collection on Tumblr. The blog is a mini research on the tastes of the 19th century audience. And we must tell you, they are pretty silly.

Speaking about retro, would you like to see some of the old photographs coming to live? Nicolas Monterrat likes it too and he shares his vision on Tumblr. Typical imagery from the past gets a new life with a bit of a surreal aftertaste. If you are looking for the vintage inspiration with a postmodern sense of humor – you came to a right place.

However, if you are more of a contemporary art and design lover, you will not regret visiting David Szakaly’s blog. 

His GIFs have a modern Technicolor scheme and semi-organic futuristic shapes. They resemble living computer cells a bit, if they had ones. But we must warn you, that mind-blowing effect might occur due to the optical illusions that are seasoned with a perfect pinch of digital manipulations. See for yourself and don’t blame us for any psychedelic effects, we have warned you. Enjoy!