Remix public domain artworks with GIF IT UP 2017

Tuesday 26 September - From 1-31 October, all GIF-­makers, history nuts, cultural heritage enthusiasts and lovers of the internet are invited to take part in the fourth annual GIF IT UP competition.

The competition encourages people to create new, fun and unique artworks from digitized cultural heritage material. A GIF is an image, video or text that has been digitally manipulated to become animated. Throughout the month, they can create and submit their own, using copyright-free digital video, images or text from Europeana Collections, Digital Public Library of America (DPLA), Trove, or DigitalNZ.  

All entries help promote public domain and openly licensed collections to a wider audience, and increase the reuse of material from these four international digital libraries, including Europeana Collections. The contest is supported by GIPHY, the world's largest library of animated GIFs.

The 2017 competition will have a special focus on first-time GIF-makers and introduce them to openly licensed content. A GIF-making workshop, providing tools and tutorials to help visitors create their first artworks, will be held on 14-15 October in cooperation with THE ARTS+, the creative business festival at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

The jury, made up of representatives from GIPHY, DailyArt and Public Domain Review, will be awarding one grand prize winner with an Electric Object - a digital photo frame especially for GIFs - sponsored by GIPHY. Prizes of online gift cards will go to three runners-up as well as winners in a first-time GIF-makers category. Special prizes will be allocated in thematic categories: transport, holidays, animals and Christmas cards.

People are also invited to take part in the People's Choice Award and vote on the competition website for their favourite GIF, which will receive a Giphoscope. All eligible entries will be showcased on the GIPHY channel dedicated to the competition, and promoted on social media with the hashtag #GIFITUP2017.

GIF IT UP started in 2014 as an initiative by the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) and DigitalNZ, and has since become a cultural highlight. 368 entries from 33 countries are featured on the GIF IT UP Tumblr. In 2016, the grand prize was awarded to ‘The State Caterpillar’, created by Kristen Carter and Jeff Gill from Los Angeles, California, using source material from the National Library of France via Europeana. Nono Burling, who got awarded the 2016 People’s Choice Award for ‘Butterflies’, said: “I adore animated GIFs made from historic materials and have for many years. The first contest in 2014 inspired me to make them myself, and every year I try to improve my skills.”

Results of the 2017 competition will be announced in November on the GIF IT UP website and related social media.

ENDS

Media contacts:

Camille Tenneson - Europeana Foundation
E: Camille.Tenneson@europeana.eu

Eleanor Kenny - Europeana Foundation
E: Eleanor.Kenny@europeana.eu

Notes for the editor:

Europeana is Europe’s platform for digital cultural heritage with a mission to ‘transform the world with culture’. Europeana Collections is Europe’s digital library, museum, gallery and archive. From books, photos and paintings to television broadcasts and 3D objects, Europeana Collections provides online access to a vast store of cultural heritage material from across Europe for everyone to find, use and share: for research, for learning, for creating new things. (@EuropeanaEU)

The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) connects people to the riches held within America’s libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural heritage institutions. All of the materials found through DPLA—photographs, books, maps, news footage, oral histories, personal letters, museum objects, artwork, government documents, and so much more—are free and immediately available in digital format. The cultural institutions participating in DPLA represent the richness and diversity of America itself, from the smallest local history museum to the nation’s largest cultural institutions. (@dpla)

Trove is the digital arm of the National Library of Australia. Launched in 2009, Trove is now many things to many people: a community, a set of services, an aggregation of metadata, and a growing repository of full text digital resources. Trove is a platform on which new knowledge is being built. It is a collaboration between the National Library, Australia’s State and Territory libraries and hundreds of cultural and research institutions around Australia, working together to create a legacy of Australia’s knowledge for now and into the future. (@TroveAustralia)

DigitalNZ is the search site for all things New Zealand, connecting users to reliable digitised collections from its many content partners—libraries, museums, galleries, government departments, archives, broadcasters and community groups. Users can discover more than 30 million digital items on any subject - free - including radio, print, and TV interviews, maps, photographs, films, audio and artworks from New Zealand’s early history to today. (@DigitalNZ)

Europeana DSI is co-financed by the European Union’s Connecting Europe Facility