There is practically no way to browse the Web today without coming across an animated GIF along the way, and it is increasingly difficult to find something "different" that goes beyond the barriers of a meme or an unexpected action. On previous occasions we have seen the artistic potential of animated GIFs, but this time, the graffiti artist INSA created in Rio de Janeiro the largest animated GIF in the world, combining a painting of 14 thousand square meters with satellite images.
Four days. Twenty assistants. The heat of Rio de Janeiro. And the challenge of creating something new, without precedent. Animated GIFs can be entertaining, surprising, tender or frightening, but in most cases they are not necessarily original. How many frames from The Simpsons have been converted into animated GIFs? Think of half a dozen popular series, and in a matter of minutes you will find a handful of GIFs based on them. Social networks take care of making them travel the world almost instantly, and the most interesting will be viralized, or turned into memes for a while. This mechanism repeats until exhaustion, so original content becomes hard to find. Fortunately, the graffiti artist INSA managed to break with that for a while. How? By creating the largest animated GIF in the world.
The project is called "Space GIF-iti" and has the support of Ballantine's, the famous Scotch whiskey brand. Basically, INSA and his collaborators painted for four days a surface that exceeds 14 thousand square meters, waiting for a satellite to pass over that area at ten thirty in the morning (local time) to take a photograph. Just four frames demanded a total of 576 man-hours, and they had to fight not only against the clock and the weather, but also with the possibility of running out of paint. In the end, everything went as INSA wanted, and the record for the largest animated painting on the planet is in his possession.
Anyone could argue that an animated GIF of planet Earth or the Sun is significantly larger than this patch painted in yellow and pink, but those natural wonders have a decisive advantage. Even so, 14 thousand square meters are no small matter, and the effort of everyone involved deserves to be properly recognized. On the other hand, I think INSA has just surpassed with this animated GIF everything he has done so far. What will be next on his list...?
