The term ‘GIF-ITI’, is a relatively new one, and a sub-class of street art/graffiti that is ruled by London based artist Insa. Having begun his career as a graffiti writer, he has since gone on to become known for his unique patterns and motifs, which have since been displayed around the world, on the streets and in the galleries.

Insa is an artist renowned for experimentation and innovation, exemplified by his ground-breaking GIF-ITI creation. The concept is simple, take a wall. Paint it and take a picture. Repaint it, take a picture. Repeat this process until you can piece all the images together into one short animated GIF, creating a piece of moving art on a physical wall that paradoxically, can only be viewed online.

Check out some more amazing examples from Insa, back in our blog post from May 2013.

The scale on which GIF-ITI has been attempted has been relatively modest so far, but only when viewed in comparison to his latest project.

The giant animated artwork – the most ambitious of its kind – was painted on the ground in four stages over four days in Rio de Janeiro, measuring an incredible 57,515m2. The design takes inspiration from his iconic ‘Looking For Love…’ heart.

The huge paintings weren’t captured from a nearby tall building, or even a drone. Each individual snapshot was instead collected via satellite, orbiting 431 miles above the earth. Something quite incredible from the point of view of a regular (and average) street art photographer like myself!

On the work, Insa said: “the scale of this project is like no other; it’s been a dream of mine for years to create a piece of graffiti that can be seen from space, but working in synchronicity with the earth’s cycle to also create an animation is next level.”

“To me the GIF was made by the satellite, all I had to do was receive the images and overlay them, then set them to loop.”

“What I love about producing my GIFs is the amount of effort – the scale and man power that has gone into this is huge – but ultimately it’s still just a 600 pixel wide GIF to be shared online. In terms of scale and for the way this project attempts to illustrate time, it’s everything I’ve ever wanted my art to be.”

You can check the video, produced in collaboration with Ballantine’s, for more on the project, how it came to be, and the logistics of a truly epic project.

Having pushed the boundaries this far – the question is, where does he go from here?

Steven
UKB