With investors pumping money into online art sites, Julia Halperin asks, “[C]an a cultural sector that typically relies on exclusivity, personal contact, and (often) opacity make an effective transition to the web?” Then there’s the monetization question.

What happens when contemporary artists, including Alex da Corte and Joe Kay, try their hands at making animated GIFs: Bruce Naumann-like loops of a perpetually lit/extinguished candle or an Untitled Film Still featuring a blinking Cindy Sherman.

Calling the animated GIF “one of the internet’s most creative canvases since its availability,” Rhizome looks at a new development—GIFS that transcend their two-dimensional context. Behold: 3D animated GIFs.

The Current, MPR’s rock station and a frequent Walker media partner, launches a new website Thursday, designed by former Walker new media designer Justin Heideman. Now in beta, the site has a responsive design, new HTML5 audio player, and more.

Rhizome analyzes the importance of “GIFability” of various media, and looks at how GIFs recontextualize and help circulate the original media. This GIFability is important, “because in a sense, no work has been completed until it has been GIFed.”

Artworks and paper archives weren’t all that was damaged by Hurricane Sandy. Eyebeam, a media non-profit, experienced damage to supposedly stable DVDS, hard-drives, and tapes. Now Eyebeam is contemplating what this means for the future of digital preservation.

Passing over runners-up “super PAC” and “superstorm,” Oxford Dictionaries’ word of 2012 is “GIF.” The web file format used for creating simple animations turns 25 this year, “but like so many other relics of the 80s, it has never been trendier.”

For his new project, Ben Grosser “demetricates” Facebook. His open-source app removes quantity indicators—the number of likes, comments, and notifications—as a way of making browsing more neutral and less influenced by other people’s interests.