The Slow GIF Movement takes the ubiquitous, flashing, momentary image of a GIF and reimagines it as slow, durational artworks and a public health intervention for the online world.
This wide-ranging project explores our agency and responsibility over public space, both in real life and online. Rhiannon brings hers and others’ lived experience of neurodiversity to an understanding of how GIF culture is currently increasing the hostility of online space, and seeks to rectify that with the creation of calming, gently looping GIFs of her own and others’ creation.
The Slow GIF Movement is offered as a public health intervention in the online world: the act of making and sharing them becomes an intervention in the environment, an act of solidarity, and a way to disseminate a collection of art works.
Research and development for The Slow GIF Movement was supported by The Space Arts and Unlimited, and through Rhiannon’s position as the Brighton Digital Festival/Blast Theory Artist in Residence (2018).
The Slow GIF Movement is in development, with a number of planned or existing public sharings:
- public intervention in a conference environment for Light Up the North and Nesta (October 2018)
- a day-long workshop and evening virtual tresspass event (planned for Brighton Digital Festival 2019)
- a research project with St George’s Hospital exploring clinical uses of the Kaleidoscope Landscapes for Better Breathing series for patients with heart failure (2019).