Here at the Daily Dot, we have an unofficial tradition of sharing GIF images with each other every morning. Now we’re looping you into the circle. In the Morning GIF, we feature a popular—or just plain cool—GIF we found on Reddit, Canvas, or elsewhere on the Internet.
In the world of Richie Hull, the art director for Australia’s Popular Science magazine, stars are the source of inspiration for dozens of GIF animations featured on his Tumblr blog xcopy.
Over the last year and a half, Hull’s lifelong interest in space has helped him create surreal animations that are both haunting and strangely beautiful.
“When I look at a star I don’t just see a dot, I like to take a second to think about how long the light has been travelling to reach my eye,” Hull told the Daily Dot. “I’m always wondering if we’ll ever make it off earth or if we’ll wipe ourselves out before we get the chance.”
Last weekend, Hull posted a GIF of a lonely astronaut floating in a sea of moving white dots and random lines. Instead of a face, the astronaut has a blinking white light that “pretty much represents the mind, or at least it’s my way of trying to understand what consciousness is,” Hull said.
“I spent about four hours on that particular GIF, although I had already created the astronaut,” he added. “So most of that time would of been spent playing with the light and experimenting until I feel like it captures my mood. … I was pretty stressed out, but telling myself it’s just a ride. It really is therapy for me.”
Hull’s GIF has collected more than 850 notes.
