Welcome, seekers of the inner truth, to .GIF Critique Theatre. This week we examine .GIF art portraying environmental themes, and the place humanity takes in this environment. .GIF image artistry has a long and complex relationship with the natural world, going back many couples of years. I hope you will find as much mental sustenance for your questing mind as I do in these masterworks of the grand art of .GIFcraft.

Growing Tree

The growing tree is an example of the meticulous design and attention to pacing that is a hallmark of early English .GIF artistry. Notice the slight pause the swaying tree makes as the human emerges for the first time from betwixt its verdant foliage. Notice, too, the lingering shot of the ejected human on the ground. This was intentionally done to give the viewer time to mentally register the message this .GIF holds before launching into another iteration.

And just what is this message? Obviously the artist was attempting to portray the link mankind has with the natural world. Indeed this piece emphasizes the fact that we are born of Mother Nature’s womb, for where else would we have our genesis? Man is not present until the lush greenery has fully billowed forth. Interesting is man’s attempt to escape this natural eden, and the tree’s violent response to this.

As complex thematically as this work is, the artist failed to pay heed to execution. Man is a crudely depicted facsimile who does not engender sympathy. The artist squanders an opportunity for greater emotional impact and identification in his careless depiction of man’s form at the mercy of a vengeful Mother Earth.

Tools2

Tools2 is the second in the series “What Hath Man Wrought” by Egyptian .GIF artist Sammar Jones. The series deals with modern technology in relation to the human condition, and specifically asks the question, “Are we truly better off for technology’s presence?”

In a VoIP interview, we asked Sammar Jones about the inspiration for his work.

“I have strong feelings that technology is impeding mankind’s humanity. For instance, Just the other month I had flown in to New York on business. I was on my cellphone with my wife, who was going to undergo a minor operation to remove a painful cyst, when a careless passerby on a bicycle skidded through a puddle of water and splashed me. I was so angry that day that I nearly dropped my ipod while shaking my fist.”

“Now, had we never invented the wheel, the rude individual would not have been biking, and I would not have been wet. If mankind had never developed clothing I would not have had my soaked underwear riding up my crack all afternoon. In these ways we are living in a technological hell.”

“My work is like that. The hammer pounds and pounds, but for all its complexity and space age materials it can not drive the nail home. It’s circuitry and superconducting polarized ionic head is not able to perform the task a simple rock would have no trouble completing.”

Overwater

Overwater is very similar in theme to Jones’s Tools2, but the execution and mood are entirely different. Instead of dwelling in a negative way about the harm technology has done to man’s satisfaction, the artist here focuses on the beauty of nature in such a way as to make all of man’s scientific progress seem trite. The airplane literally hovers motionless as we are captivated by the completely natural lapping of waves.

This work makes the point that, although we live in a jungle of concrete and stainless steel, the beauty of nature can be had just by the act of shifting our focus. In the artist’s mind communing with nature has healing properties in an artificial setting. Yes, we have the ability to fly to our destination in a gas fueled mechanized airplane, but might we also swim in the cooling waters of Mother Earth with the destination being the same?

Thank you, kind reader, for your patronage at the .GIF Critique Theatre. We do hope you will peruse our gallery during our next show, a look at the .GIF image in the political arena.

Previous .GIF gallery shows

-Andy