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The text classifies GIF types (classic, frame capture, art, glitch, mash-up), linking each form to changing modes of similarity, meaning-making, and internet expression.",{"@graph":14,"@context":73},[15,34,56],{"@type":16,"itemListElement":17},"BreadcrumbList",[18,23,27,31],{"item":19,"name":20,"@type":21,"position":22},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",1,{"item":24,"name":25,"@type":21,"position":26},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":28,"name":29,"@type":21,"position":30},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/literature/","Literature",3,{"item":32,"name":10,"@type":21,"position":33},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/short-circuits-the-doctrine-of-the-similar-gif-gif-gif/413560/",4,{"url":32,"name":10,"@type":35,"image":36,"author":41,"headline":10,"publisher":44,"fileFormat":47,"inLanguage":8,"description":12,"dateModified":48,"datePublished":49,"encodingFormat":47,"isAccessibleForFree":50,"interactionStatistic":51},"DigitalDocument",{"url":37,"@type":38,"width":39,"height":40},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/short-circuits-the-doctrine-of-the-similar-gif-gif-gif/413560.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":42,"@type":43},"Asher","Person",{"url":19,"name":45,"@type":46},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-22","2026-09-28",true,{"@type":52,"interactionType":53,"userInteractionCount":55},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":54},"ViewAction",6,{"@type":57,"mainEntity":58},"FAQPage",[59,65,69],{"name":60,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":62},"What idea does the text connect to animated GIFs using Benjamin’s 1933 essays?","Question",{"text":63,"@type":64},"It links GIFs to Benjamin’s account of how language and writing replace an earlier mimetic faculty, turning perception of similarity into “non-sensuous correspondences.”","Answer",{"name":66,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":67},"How does the text explain the historical popularity and technical development of GIFs?",{"text":68,"@type":64},"It attributes early popularity to how GIFs could partially load on limited bandwidth, and later describes how web hackers encoded animations within a single GIF using a “partial loading” mechanism.",{"name":70,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":71},"What GIF types are classified in the document?",{"text":72,"@type":64},"It distinguishes GIF Type I (Classic), Type II (Frame Capture), Type III (Art), Type IV (Glitch), and Type V (Mash-Up), plus mentions other categories like sci-tech/educational renders and 8-bit-inspired mise en abyme.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":32,"og:type":75,"og:title":10,"og:site_name":45,"og:description":12},"article",{"robots":77,"canonical":32},"index,follow",{"doc_id":79,"site_id":7},413560,1791411725,{"code":4,"msg":82,"data":83},"success",[84,88,91,95,100,104,109,114,119,122,126],{"id":22,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":85,"show_sort_weight":86,"slug":87},"Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":26,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":29,"show_sort_weight":89,"slug":90},80,"literature",{"id":33,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":92,"show_sort_weight":93,"slug":94},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":96,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":97,"show_sort_weight":98,"slug":99},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":55,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":101,"show_sort_weight":102,"slug":103},"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":105,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":106,"show_sort_weight":107,"slug":108},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":110,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":111,"show_sort_weight":112,"slug":113},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":115,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":116,"show_sort_weight":117,"slug":118},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":117,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":120,"show_sort_weight":117,"slug":121},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":123,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":124,"show_sort_weight":123,"slug":125},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":127,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":128,"show_sort_weight":96,"slug":129},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":82,"data":131},{"doc_id":79,"user_id":132,"nickname":42,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":26,"category_name":29,"doc_title":10,"doc_description":12,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":55,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":22,"is_downloadable":22,"audit_status":22,"page_count":96,"language":139,"language_code":8,"site_id":7,"html_lang":8,"table_of_contents":140,"faqs":141,"seo_title":142,"seo_description":12,"update_tm":143,"read_time":110},687197207639,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_a8503ba1806abce46bf441b54a3ca4cd","/prtNe arts atk  \n1 2 0 1 0 :  \nShort Circuits  \nDaniel Rourke is currently undertaking a practice based PhD in Art at Goldsmiths. His research explores human error and the digital through the ontology of writing.  \nEmail: [d.rourke@gold.ac.uk](d.rourke@gold.ac.uk)  \nThe Doctrine of the Similar  \n(GIF GIF GIF)  \nDaniel Rourke  \n/  \nIMPORTANT NOTE FROM EDITOR AND AUTHOR This paper contains many animated GIF images. They have been left paralysed by their conversion to PDF format. You can, however, view them on the  \nauthor’s website  \n[http://machinemachine.net/text/ideas/the-doctrine-of-the-similar-gif-gif-gif](http://machinemachine.net/text/ideas/the-doctrine-of-the-similar-gif-gif-gif)  \nIn two short essays written in 1933, Walter Benjamin argued that primitive language emerged in magical correspondence with the world.1 The faculty we all exhibit in childhood play, to impersonate and imitate people and things loses its determining power as language gradually takes over from our‘non-sensuous’connection with reality. In a break from Saussurean linguistics, Benjamin decries the loss of this ‘mimetic faculty’, as it becomes further replaced by the ‘archive of non-sensuous correspondences’ we know as writing.  \nTo put it in simpler terms …where once we read the world, the stars or the entrails of a sacrificed animal, now we read the signs enabled and captured by written language. From Benjamin, The Doctrine of the Similar:  \nRourke, Daniel,‘The Doctrine of the Similar (GIF GIF GIF)’  \nDandelion: postgraduate arts journal & research network, 3.I (Winter 2012), 1-5 [online]  \nDandelion: postgraduate arts journal & research network Vol. 3, No. 1 (Winter 2012), 1–5 [online]  \nDaniel Rourke The Doctrine of the Similar (GIF GIF GIF)  \nSo speed, the swiftness in reading or writing which can scarcely be separated from this process, would then become … the effort or gift of letting the mind participate in that measure of time in which similarities flash up fleetingly out of the stream of things only in order to become immediately engulfed again.2  \nThe GIF – standing for Graphical Interchange Format – has been around since 1987. Their early popularity was based, in part, on their ability to load in time with a web page. In the days of poor bandwidth and dial-up connections this meant that at least part of a GIF image would appear before the user’s connection broke, or – more significantly – the user could see enough of the image for it to make sense. In the mid-90s, avid web hackers managed to crack the code of GIFs and use this ‘partial loading’ mechanism to encode animations within a single GIF file. Thus the era of personal web pages saturated with looping animations of spinning hamsters was born.  \nBrought on (ironically) by their obsolescence the GIF has become the medium of choice for web artists, propagating their particular net-aesthetic through this free, open and kitschy medium. GIFs inhabit the space between convenience and abundance, where an apparent breakdown in communication can stimulate new modes of expressing non-sensuous similarities in the internet world.  \nSites [like ](like dump.fm)[dump.fm](like dump.fm), 4chan and ytmnd revel in the GIF’s ability to quickly correspond to the world. GIFs can be broken into their constituent frames, compressed and corrupted on purpose and made to act as archives for viral events travelling the web. A playground of correspondences that at first reflected language and the wider world now looks increasingly inward. Finding meaning in the semiotic sludge of these GIFs requires a sensitivity to similitude bordering on the magical.  \nGIFs take a variety of forms, some of which I will try to classify here: GIF Type I: Classic  \nSmall in size and made up of few frames, this is where animated GIFs began. Corresponding to single words or concepts such as ‘smile’, ‘alien’ or ‘flying pink unicorn’.  \nGIF Type II: Frame Capture  \nDandelion: postgraduate arts journal & research network Vol. 3, No. ","cbCain2BnJ3WCh9d","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCain2BnJ3WCh9d","pdf",675394,"English","# Short Circuits\n## Benjamin and the Doctrine of the Similar\n## The GIF as Medium\n## Classification of GIF Types\n## Other GIF Modes","[{\"question\":\"What idea does the text connect to animated GIFs using Benjamin’s 1933 essays?\",\"answer\":\"It links GIFs to Benjamin’s account of how language and writing replace an earlier mimetic faculty, turning perception of similarity into “non-sensuous correspondences.”\"},{\"question\":\"How does the text explain the historical popularity and technical development of GIFs?\",\"answer\":\"It attributes early popularity to how GIFs could partially load on limited bandwidth, and later describes how web hackers encoded animations within a single GIF using a “partial loading” mechanism.\"},{\"question\":\"What GIF types are classified in the document?\",\"answer\":\"It distinguishes GIF Type I (Classic), Type II (Frame Capture), Type III (Art), Type IV (Glitch), and Type V (Mash-Up), plus mentions other categories like sci-tech/educational renders and 8-bit-inspired mise en abyme.\"}]","Short Circuits - The Doctrine of the Similar (GIF GIF GIF) | PDF",1790595152]