Hybrid Models

“These anomalous forms may almost be called living fossils; they have endured to the present day, from having inhabited a confined area, and from having thus been exposed to less severe competition.” - Charles Darwin, Origin of the Species

Crypto-Zoetropicalism, or the study of hidden animation, has revealed a great swathe of living fossils basking in the white light of the white box.  Hidden in plain sight, the movements of these creatures are implicit, not explicit.  Their bastion of crypsis relies on the exploded view, a con-sequence of the time-honored tradition.  Unlike sequential art, an acknowledged ancestor of the moving image, these crypto-zoetropical candidates began to memetically drift by way of Cubism and Futurism, modern isms intermingling but divergent also from nascent cinematic apparatuses.

Like the slowly exterminated fresh-water forms that Darwin refers to above, this particular menagerie persists by formal stealth as much as memetic isolation.  Sheltered from the heterogeneity, density and toxicity of life in the oceanic Interweb, their fossilization may well dissolve into extinction.

Putting audacity before caution, several of these “living fossils” have been hybridized with the GIF species.  If biodiversity is too hopeful, memetic contamination too much of a brag, perhaps the old haunt of context collapse will suffice as a provisional place-holder for these kinetically modified organisms (KMOs).

Is there much to be learned in from these pulsing hybrids? Can these animalized isms maintain their prowess in the thick of everyday media life?

Entertaining the simultaneity of one and three chairs, myriad soup cans and untitled stacks is perhaps a whimsical reminder perhaps a whimsical reminder that “an infinite number of contexts [are] collapsing upon one another.” (Wesch) –Network culture is cosmically indifferent towards an anomalous [read: obsolescing even now] strain of GIF speciation. Exclusivity is not synonymous with heroism in battle.

Notes on GIF Speciation

If the Metaphortean agenda is, at times, detoured when traversing ficto-quizzical terrain; the latest (((WFT))) endeavor, “The GIF Economy,” makes up for this harassing labor tenfold. The GIF Economy, a menagerie created under the auspices of the antiquated Graphic Interchange Format, invites denizens of the Interweb to create, appropriate and share GIF animations that more or less illustrate core tenets of the Weird Fiction Mythos.

Of myths and menageries, recall the origins of cinema. Muybridge, as eccentric shepard, herding animals into animations. Capturing their movements, indexing the species, accumulating a Noachian archive of images. Antecedent innovations–magic lantern shows, the zoetrope, the thaumotrope and their kin contributed likewise in caging the vital principles for playback and analysis.
The GIF is in some respects a stationary species, a living fossil, a holdover from the kinship of philosophical toys. Of particular import: the “wonder maker,” or thaumotrope. A smallish disc on a string, with images on either side, spun by its user so as create a third image by way of superimposition. The thaumotrope, a cine-molecular conceit in two frames looping is the common ancestor of GIFs today.
In other reports, a GIF is a dithered, limited to 256 colors, life in a browser, and its most splendid mega fauna typically weigh-in at no more than 1000 kilobytes. Of lines of descent, curvature and segmentation, there are a variety of speciation events to consider. Technocultural isolation, reduced meme flow and, of course, the Anomaly.
Crypto-zoetropical studies have made strides in identifying anomalous forms of animation including circuit-bent video games and data-moshing and other glitchcraft. This emphasis on cine-molecular variation within moving image arts is not, however, the distinguishing characteristic of the GIF animation, per se.

Limiting GIFs to a thaumotropical ancestry shot thru with pulses of the crypto-zoetropical is, at best, destined for deletionpedia if we do not consider the role of memetics.

Is this for instance a duck, or a rabbit? a still image or moving? The onlooker has no choice but to oscillate between animals ad infinitum. No need for a film projector, the mechanics are mental, part of a well-oiled cultural apparatus, a meme machine. Another two-frame loop, activated from within the mind, no strings attached. It is the strength of the meme pool that most vividly “animates” this of course. It’s pattern recognition rather than sequential logic.

Relatedly– the Bigfoot exists as moving image in an oft looped film sequence, recorded circa 1967, featuring the classic cryptid tromping through a clearing in Northern Californian woods.Over the years, skeptics and believers alike have poured over this filmstrip in attempts to understand the contents. Experts from both camps have broken down the sequence into discrete images in hopes of either exposing a hoax or proving the existence of Bigfoot as a living animal.

Memetic anatomy is what’s paramount here– “Bigfoot” begins and is sustained as a putty like thought-formation: rumor, report, filmic capture, tabloids, mass media and mass amateur mediation via digitized images, mashups, homages, reference hoaxes, spin-offs and jokes. This interplay of memetic nodes is amplified by computer networks, distributed globally across the Interwebs. Network realism is the lifeblood of a cryptid’s survival, photo-realism is secondary, actual occurrences sheepishly clawing at third place.

GIFs have facilitated Bigfoot, other cryptids, various memetic phenomena, yes. Strikingly, as context is collapsing galactically, globally and locally, the authority of photo-realist regimes does not compute. GIFs are contemporary cryptids, living fossils re-fueled, despite playback problematics and varied chokeholds posed by modern day browsers. Valuable operatives in a paradigm shift towards the ficto-quizzical! GIFs take the helm as stand alone memetic organisms thriving within the pervasively networked information environment. Abundant in internet forums, redolent of embarassing webcam moments, panopticoncentrated CCTV blips, celebrity gaffaws, unintended celebrities, faux-error messages, geocities artifacts, pop cultural in-jokes, optical illusions, visual trolling pranks and deeper, darker abysms of vile intent, GIFs prevail.

Hybridities and mutation are commonplace, as one memetically charged GIF infrastructure is piggybacked by another’s visual variant, thus altering the species. Modular and multiplex traits proliferate rhizomatically ‘cross the Interweb via recursive instantiations of memetic debris and endless bouts of ludic recombination, (not unlike exploits of the Majestic12) Initially short lifespans beget meandering permutations and coalessences that irupt into novel and derelict theory objects. This sprawl is facilitated by automated GIF animation sites, the mandate to recombinate, manageable possibilities and the sublimely abject aesthetics that are ever present and richly wielded in GIFs.
Having successfully erected obliteratariums for the study of denizens of dark webs and negative net space, i.e. the obliterati—Weird Fiction here laterally move this stronghold of greymarket R+D, aiming at the polterzeitgeist that is, in other words, the GIF ridden, memetic lifeworld of Interweb phenomena today. Temporary Autonomous Clones and temporarily autonomous Lorkurers are stationed in the foyer, sifting through incoming GIFS, classifying visual projectiles and building up a reservoir of GIF animations online and on site. Ultimately, these galleries-cum-GIF strongholds likely to crop up offline, elsewhere, globally– will be as rest stops and road-side attractions for the space-time implosions predicted to manifest in the coming age of ubiquitous computing and spimal taps. Weaponized whimsy, symptomatic of second-wave vampling? Again, dear readers, this ficto-quizzical is a curious lot for the fleshy mind of a mere Metaphortean Researcher to process in full. Till next time!

The Old Crypto-Zoetropical Pursuit

Cryptozoology, the study of unknown, hidden, or mystery animals is a marginal scientific discipline operating outside of traditional zoological practice. Believing firmly in things that are not supposed to exist, cryptozoologists counter dominant ideologies with alternative theories and new taxonomic models. The Bigfoot, shuffling by in Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin’s home movie from October 20th 1967, is Cryptozoology’s most moving image.

Over the years, skeptics and believers alike have poured over the Patterson-Gimlin filmstrip in attempts to understand the hairy homonid. Experts from both camps have broken down the sequence into discrete parts in hopes of either exposing the hoax or proving the existence of Bigfoot as a living animal. From animals to animation (that other illusion)– unknown, hidden and mysterious experiences are engaging because they activate and agitate the human capacity for wonder and curiosity

The Bigfoot experience begins and is sustained as data: rumor, report, filmic capture, reproduced images, video capture, digitized images, and so on. Communication and participation in this network is as fundamental to the cryptozoological encounter, as technology is crucial to suspend disbelief in moving image experiences. The actual living, breathing thing is an [optical] allusion. These entities are facilitated by cultural and technological apparatuses.

In deconstructing the animal’s movement, the proto-cinematic motion studies of Eadward Muybridge come to mind.

From animals to animation, movement is broken down, the wonderment surrounding both phenomena, both illusions, is halted. Returned to scien