The animation we know today started with the arrival of the camera and it became a form of expression for social and political issues in the avant-garde artist environment at the beginning of the 20th century. Since then, animation has developed and today we mainly define animation from a highly commercialized perspective, mainly as film and games.
For me, animation was a way to take my artistic work further, but I also ended up in the same commercial world, as a performer in production and advertising. I tried to find new ways to find back to the lustful animation again as the a craft and artistic expression it is. In the higher educations that offer animation in Sweden, it is only available as a specialization in film or games, and at the only artistic college with animation as a specialization in film, the education has a market-adapted structure. What does that do to animation as a profession, craft and art form?
My essay is about this, my thoughts about how animation is defined and how I myself am looking for an expanded way of using handmade animation as a form of expression in new contexts.