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Since Banksy is doing his NYC residency this month, I thought I’d take another shot at animated graffiti. Except this isn’t really graffiti. Whatever. I thought the velvet ropes on the traffic pylons were a nice touch. The original image has some audio commentary, at least for the time being.
I discovered Bortusk Leer with my son two years ago in an area of Dumbo that is very popular with street artists. The old shipping warehouse on Water St. has had scaffolding for years (at least all the time I’ve seen it), which has provided an environment for lots of great graffiti. I took a bunch of photos that day and posted them on Flickr. And a week later my son and I did some Leer inspired chalking on our sidewalk in Brooklyn.
So when I saw the GIF-fiti assignment created by Paul Bond and the utterly amazing animations of Banksy’s street art which inspired the assignment, I thought of Leer. The animated gif of Banksy’s girl on a swing is some crazy impressive work that I could only aspire to do. And Paul created a very clever GIF of a piece of street art, so I’m happy to be the second one to complete this assignment, which Alan Levine basically goaded Paul into making.
The Animated Bansky GIFs showed up on my Twitter feed last week sometime, I think. Cogdog tweeted them again today, so I innocently inquired if animated graffiti was an assignment yet. To which he barked, “Do it yourself, you worthless maggot!”
@phb256 Tweeting a link saying “this would be a good #ds106 assignment” is NOT #4life. Actually DOING it and adding it, is crossover point.
— Alan Levine (@cogdog) September 12, 2012
So I posted it as an assignment, then set about trying to complete it. Johnstown doesn’t have much graffiti. Maybe it’s because the buildings are so run down that it would embarrass the artwork. Or maybe Johnstown needs to work on its graffiti skills. Anyway, I spotted this smiling face on the side of the building where you can rent port-a-johns, so I thought I’d try to make it wink. I copied bits and pieces of white to cover up one of the x-eyes, then copied and rotated one of the x-crossbars for the wink. I wasn’t sure how I should make a halfway wink, but I think the animation works without it.
Now, I like graffiti as much as the next guy, except when it’s spray painted on my house. But you know what makes it even better? If it moves! Check out Animated Banksy for inspiration (http://madebyabvh.tumblr.com/tagged/Animated-Banksy). Photograph some graffiti or street art, or find a photo if you’re lazy, and make it into an animated GIF. It’s more fun than vandalism!
