The acronym GIF (Graphic Interchange Format) is today mostly used to describe small annoying, blinking animations on amateur Web pages. However, it's important to remember that the file format specification is 21 years old, older than the Web itself. The first browsers didn't support GIFs, but in March 1996, with the release of Netscape 2.0, it became possible—and the face of the Internet changed within a few months. Early Web users, hungry for multimedia, were soon animating everything, from headers, backgrounds, and navigation to lists and "under construction" signs. Software tools to create these files became available for free.

Apart from animation, the GIF supported transparency, which meant an animation that appeared on one page could be put on any other, background colors or patterns shining through. This made it easy to fit GIFs into almost any setting and inspired numerous animated GIF collections, a vital process for the early Web and making your own site. The animations could also run endlessly, no matter for how long a page was already loaded, or if users scrolled up or down.

Despite these features, in the late 1990s, designers tried to wash animated GIFs away from the Web, as they looked amateurish and their free nature was incompatible with Web design as a business. However, not only have animated GIFs survived, but as artist and blogger Tom Moody has said, they have “evolved into a kind of ubiquitous 'mini-cinema,’ entirely native to the personal computer and the World Wide Web. . . along with JPEGs and PNGs comprise its most authentic visual language.” Evidence of this can be seen by the naïve art by GIF collector Juanna or the homepage of the artist Petra Cortright.

Contemporary artists who are interested in online culture pay special attention to GIFs as a Web phenomena and a file format include the Canadian Stephanie Davidson, who creates GIFs from found online footage, using lo-fi animation techniques and abstract, looping narratives, reminiscent of vernacular GIF animations that have been copied millions of times. Her GIFs are so complete and visually compact that it would be impossible to use them in the aforementioned collages. The focus is on the file format itself.

In 2008, Kevin Bewersdorf built the definitive Web mandala canvas, uniting and synchronizing dozens of GIF classics. Although the original version of the artwork is a full HD uncompressed video loop that technically goes beyond what can be meaningfully transferred and consumed online, the work pays tribute to GIFs as a cultural phenomenon, bringing years of Web surfing into a single frame.

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