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Volume 8 Number 1
  • ISSN: 2042-7875
  • E-ISSN: 2042-7883

Abstract

My drawn animation practice has always focused on the gestural mark and messy materiality. This article is about what happened to that practice in the transition from analogue to digital animation, questioning what was lost forever and what might still be worth fighting for. This practitioner’s account of a ‘before digital, after digital’ career describes the experience of making work, as work itself changed forever. Ushered in with little reflection or resistance in the mid-1990s, the new digital doctrine slowly consumed hand-drawn 2D animation production to the point where few but the most determined independent makers keep this vital practice alive. My contention is that a reckoning on why and how we engage with digital technology is long overdue. The article will set out why – after working with digital tools for more than twenty years – I have now abandoned all but the most cursory engagement with new media tools and taken the long walk back to a material analogue practice. The ideas under discussion here can be traced back to one overriding concern – the unsolvable relationship between and This dichotomy is unique to 2D animation, because freedom of gesture in drawing does not produce continuity of movement in animation. Mining this seam drives my independent animation practice as I try to reconcile the page and the frame.

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2020-12-01
2024-04-25
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Improvements on the truth
Animation Practice, Process & Production 8, 63 (2019); https://doi.org/10.1386/ap3_00005_1
/content/journals/10.1386/ap3_00005_1
/content/journals/10.1386/ap3_00005_1
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  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): analogue; brush; chance; digital; gesture; ink; materiality

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