GIF free for all

Animated GIFs can be created by anyone and are about anything. The animated GIF is ubiquitous and democratic. Online, it's proliferation coincides with the developing ways we use the Internet. As a unique and accessible moving image filetype, animated GIF functions on the logic of openness and distributed networks in a time of increasing data surveillance and restrictions to access by governing bodies and corporate capitalization of data-spaces.

GIF Free For All is an online exhibition of animated GIFs created by 19 international artists. By acknowledging the range of contemporary and popular culture uses, this exhibition seeks to expand the conversation surrounding animated GIFs within Art contexts. By occupying server spaces worldwide, by circulating endlessly, by evolving and shifting over time, by looping and tiling in expanding frames and windows, the animated GIF is FREE FOR ALL.

Invited artists were be asked to contribute at least one animated GIF for the exhibition and to work within a few filesize constraints. This GIF exhibition was compiled and launched in conjunction with Computer Art Congress 4 - CAC4 Rio de Janeiro. GIF Free For All will be exhibited as part of the gallery exhibition at CAC4. GIF Free For All was proposed, organized, and presented by A. Bill Miller. It was initially launch at the congress, and then released publicly. The show was also supported by the University of Wisconsin Whitewater and TRANSFER Gallery in Brooklyn, NYC.