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GIF-iti: incredible animated graffiti

Artist Insa has taken street art to the next level — by turning it into animated GIFs.

Michelle Starr Science editor
Michelle Starr is CNET's science editor, and she hopes to get you as enthralled with the wonders of the universe as she is. When she's not daydreaming about flying through space, she's daydreaming about bats.
Michelle Starr

Artist Insa has taken street art to the next level — by turning it into animated GIFs.

Hollywood Dooom, 2012 (Credit: Insa)

We've seen graffiti that doesn't show its true self until it's viewed on a screen before in the form of AR graffiti and QR code graffiti — but artist Insa is putting a lot more work into taking the street out of his street art.

The artist painstakingly applies his artwork to walls and buildings, which he then photographs between layers to create incredible moving pictures that can only be seen on a screen.

The above building was a collaboration between Insa and Stanley Donwood. It was commissioned by XL Records to celebrate the launch of Thom Yorke's Atoms for Peace's debut album.

Insa painted over XL Records' entire LA building four times with Donwood's iconic lino-cut imagery to create the piece, called Hollywood Dooom.

Insa said of the piece:

My challenge was to take two very static items, a beautiful lino-cut and a less beautiful box of a building, and bring them to life. After a week of sweating in the Los Angeles late-summer sun re-painting the whole building several times, I got there. Animated as a continuous GIF, it may only live online, but some would argue that is where most now live their lives...

See more of Insa's work below and on his blog.

Hollywood Dooom (detail) (Credit: Insa)
We are 2, 2012. (Credit: Insa)
On the brain, a collaboration with Israeli street artist Unga, 2012. (Credit: Insa)
On the brain, 2012. (Credit: Insa)

Via www.thisiscolossal.com