The World's Largest GIF Is This Mural by Street Artist INSA in Rio de Janeiro

This GIF-iti took 20 people and a satellite 430 miles above Earth to complete.

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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As if pioneering the art of combining animated GIFs and graffiti (known as GIF-iti) wasn't cool enough, UK-based artist INSA recently took things to a cosmic level with a project down in Rio de Janeiro. Backed by a team of 20 painters and armed with a satellite 430 miles above the Earth, the artist created what Mashable says is the world's largest GIF.

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"I was approached by Ballantine’s who asked if I had any crazy ideas for pushing my work to another level," INSA told Mashable in an interview. "I said I want to paint something big enough to be seen from space and to animate it." With the company's support, lots of paint, and six days worth of work, he was able to make that crazy idea become a reality. 

"It seemed a shame the level of work that was going into something that was only going to be seen as a small image online," said INSA, "but then I just thought why not make the Internet, and those few images, the best way to view my work - even make it the only platform for seeing the final work...GIFs are the ultimate internet fodder."

The cool video below shows the artist's process of mapping out each painting and executing his plan in a short window of time.

[via Mashable]

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