These Mind-bending GIFs Chronicle the Evolution of the Internet

Matthew Williamson’s web-based animations may soon be obsolete, but they’ll still be art.

July 21, 2016, 12:00pm

Matthew Williamson's GIFs are contemporary relics of the world wide web, documenting the instantly gratifying yet relentlessly ephemeral nature of online culture. His striking, near-blinding animations are forever frozen in the famously notorious bitmap image format, serving as kaleidoscopic mini-flashbacks to a time when emoticons, emojis, and GIFs weren't rapidly shared socially, and instead just served as capsule reflections of their creators' minds.

For Williamson, digital media and the internet are just the newest ways to address important issues. "The materials, methods, [and] content carry so much metadata about the artist and the circumstances," Williamson tells The Creators Project. "We're in this weird place where not that long ago, no one had access to production and distribution tools, and then we were flooded with stuff." Based in Ottawa, Canada, Williamson attended Syracuse University and studied art at OCADU in Toronto. He's always believed that art has been used as a form of social commentary, inherently reflecting the time it's been made.

Williamson feels that new media and techniques are changing our idea of privacy, and he's particularly intrigued with how institutions and individuals are developing new strategies to redefine what it means to be free from observation and public scrutiny in the 21st century. "It might be iPhone games or VR, but they still speak to the issues of the day—either reinforcing norms, or transgressing in some way," Williamson observes. "It's sometimes hard to see until you get further along in the timeline."

As an artist, Williamson seeks to visually contextualize his own thoughts and emotions within the outside world. Often, the struggles are trivial, and they're usually the result of some kind of anxiety that results from technological frustrations. "I don't really differentiate between any sort of platforms," he explains. "Absurdity is better than monumentality."

Unsurprisingly, Williamson doesn't confine himself to the definition of a socially-conscious artist. He genuinely feels that he's experiencing the same challenges as most people, and the only thing that separates him from others is the fact that he makes art as a result. Still, he's noticed his own creative evolution from a conceptually-minded artist to someone who simply uses his creativity as a mode of personal expression.

"Sometimes it can be hard to articulate what you are upset about, and I think that maybe art is best when it can get at something that can't be put into words," Williamson says. "Someone once told me that if you're trying to say something it's best to just say it, but it's not always that easy, and that is when art can be the most useful."

Follow Matthew Williamson on Instagram and Tumblr, and visit his website here.