Trying To Change The World, One GIF At A Time

Prepare your eyeballs and brains before visiting the website of game-changing European graphic-design duo Pinar Demirdag and Viola Renate, aka Pinar&Viola--which kind of looks like a hallucinogen friendly Lisa Frank for VFILES iPhone app; a total Tumblr of a trip, an emoji euphoria of a mind-meld, showcasing the duo's wackily wonderful work. Personal favorites on the site include their Scandal Aqua towel collection, which NEEDS to make an appearance around Olivia Pope’s body on the show.

Below, enlarged portraits of serious-faced, icy-eyed fictional politicians on the aforementioned beach towels are juxtaposed with animated rainbows/butterflies/kittens and other pop culture-friendly whimsical backdrops.

Keep clicking on the site and you'll find the 4eva online love message service where, after signing up (I DID!), your very own virtual lover will fill up your inbox (10 times only… #nothinglastsforever) with 'intimate thoughts and private pictures.' According to the GIF examples on the site, you might also expect cuties flaunting their pecs and giving their best duck faces--alongside pulsating neon butterflies and rhinestone Playboy bunnies, and messages in zany aughties-friendly fonts saying things like 'Luf U.'

"4eva is an online love message service, where perfect lovers that cater to all tastes, ready to quench anyone's thirst for love and attention, are delivered to your mailbox. After the user subscribes to the service, these lovers will send them emails filled with intimate thoughts and private pictures," says the pair.

"The contemporary world is ready to give mankind whatever it may want. The desire for connection and the quest of a perfect relationship have ended. Ours is but one option in a booming market of robotic partners, one-night stands apps, phone girlfriends and every other wish for proximity anyone might have."

Another must-have app is My Secret Assistant, a "smartphone application which discretely keeps the connection between you and your network warm and alive," says the artists. "This project is a critical proposal for the future of journalism."

In other words, they make a lot of awesome shaz that will have you kicking it with your laptop/iPhone/maybe a cat and relaxing many a weekend night.

But hold that thought for now and leave your bedroom for a few hours to hit up the duo's US debut show, Blue Jeans On Ice, at LA's KK Gallery. It’s worth the social anxiety. Don't worry, you can bring your iPhone to take selfies, or, better yet, if you're feeling inspired, do a post-show reflective webcam selfie with one of Pinar&Viola's webcam apps. I personally am into Webcam Venus (extreeemely NSFW) because it means I can get my Mona Lisa on.

It's nothing new that Pinar&Viola are all about taking heavy, timely subjects whilst putting it through their LOL-friendly, “like”-inducing lense (I mean, filter). This show, however, seems to be a reflection/protest re: the perpetual hash-tag that is gun violence in America. In other words, the gallery has been transformed into a carnivalesque madhouse featuring an installation made of the all American staple fabric: blue jeans.

Above, a blue jean teddy bear installation draws attention to the menace that is gun violence in America.

It goes like this: Visitors are handed rifles and their shooting targets are small mirrors. So yes you’re essentially staring at your self being pseudo shot. Those who shatter the target win a handcrafted denim teddy bear. They’re really cute, although they seem to be wounded. But the gushing blood is replaced by gushing crystals, so it’s all good.

There's only 62 fluffy things though, so hurry up if you wanna snuggle. BTW, 62 = the number of mass murders in the U.S. since Pinar&Viola were born. Still want that teddy bear? Whether they’ve got you thinking before you sext or have you googling it up re: U.S. gun laws, Pinar&Viola are doing something really right.

Below, a few other projects from this bonkers duo:

"We were asked to hand craft a skin for a meter length Adidas trefoil. This project made for All Originals party in Istanbul, which took place on November 6th 2012," says the duo.

"…Glad to be given carte blanche, we took the chance to make a Ghetto-glam-didas skin, a pattern with the bootlegged versions of their logo."

Stained glass windows for Beth Shalom Synagogue Amsterdam.

Wiki Loves Art

"Wiki Loves Art is a international event where museums and cultural institutions temporary opened their doors for a free content photography contest. Participants competed to take photographs aimed to illustrate the Wikipedia articles," says Pinar&Viola. "This initiative wants to show that copyright laws are way behind the cultural practices on the internet. For Wiki Loves Art publication, artists and designers were ask to remix these pictures as a positive contribution to the international debate about copyrights."

"We contributed with a series of ecstatic patterns and still lifes. In these surfaces, classical iconographic statues are combined with 3D computer graphics which are copies of contemporary icons. These virtual celebrity busts were rendered by users of a popular life simulating video game, The Sims, then uploaded on the internet for other gamers to play with."

"The Panda Show is a webcam application which enables you to make pictures of yourself with a panda mask. We custom-tailored this playful application for Nicola Formichetti, to make his panda family grow."

For more fun, visit [pinar-viola.com](http:// http://www.pinar-viola.com/).