Michael Bell-Smith, Espen Friberg, Vidya Gastaldon, Ezra Johnson, Yui Kugimiya, Takeshi Murata, Adam Shecter. 

A video screening in several outdoor locations in Stavanger, Norway. Keep On Moving, Don't Stop presents seven young artists from USA, Japan, Switzerland and Norway who are working with animation. In a world where extreme 3D animation is the norm, both in Hollywood, video games and on the Internet, and where it is currently difficult to spot the difference between an animated character and a real life actor, it is interesting to look at how artists are utilizing the media and expanding it into new territories.

The artists included in Keep on Moving, Don?t Stop represents a new generation of artists who grew up with TV, video games and the Internet, and are currently working critically with digital tools. The project involves animations utilizing digital video tools, effects, and hacks to visualize and manipulate the effects of technological development upon art and popular culture, and further animations that explore the traditional media of painting and its possibilities for transformation through animation.

Animation is an optical illusion of movement. The first efforts of illustrating movement, what we could call pre-animation, were cave paintings of animals with multiple sets of legs. The first animated film on reel was produced two million years later; Humorous Phases of Funny Faces, directed by Stuart Blackton in 1906.Traditional animation, or hand drawn animation, was thereby born, and Walt Disney took the media to new heights with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first commercial successful animated feature. (Walt Disney won an Academy Award for the movie, consisting of one big and seven small Oscars). Today animations are made with CGI (Computer Generated Imagery), computer programs which have revolutionized the industry. 3D modeling on a computer has taken over from drawing-by-hand.

Artists have been working with animation since way back in time, either as part of their work, or as their full time media. Most of the artists in Keep on Moving, Don?t Stop are working with animation as their main subject matter, but in very different ways. 

Commissioned by Public Screens, Stavanger, Norway.