In this sweetly naïve short, filmmaker and stop-motion animator Grant Holden utilises the self-interview to reflect on the memory of the sudden disappearance of a childhood companion. His words – recorded seemingly without pause, stutters and all – are presented through considered use of erasure animation.
As I hold no copyright over these spotlighted works, links may break from time to time, but where this is the case, I ask you - seek them out. It’ll be worth it.
A few years ago, as part of Animation Research Network Scotland, I began a series of weekly posts under the title Wee Watch, through which we’d shine a light on notable works in the field. It was enjoyable, curating short pieces from the world of animation online – delving into a multitude of styles and techniques, building an archive of sorts – though it never went as far as I’d have liked.
And so, with very little pageantry, and even less direction, I’ve decided to rewind and relaunch right here. I can’t account for the ever-changing nature of taste, but adored or abhorred, each piece deserves dissemination and discussion, however minor it may be.
To kick the series back off, we return once again to Ainslie Henderson’s Stems, in which he lovingly brings stuff to life, commenting on the “inherent sadness” of stop motion puppets. It’s short and sweet, and each time I watch it, my love of the creation process is reinvigorated.
As I hold no copyright over these spotlighted works, links may break from time to time, but where this is the case, I ask you - seek them out. It’ll be worth it.
With Instagram’s parent company Meta proposing the new AI at Meta Privacy Policy, we are seeing a mass exodus of artists from the platform. The new policy allows Meta to utilise any posts, images, and captions (new and old, on all their platforms) to develop their machine learning model, and while you can attempt to opt-out, there is no guarantee this will be accepted, or honoured for that matter. You can read more about this here.
For many artists, social media platforms like Instagram are key to public engagement, self-promotion, and that age-old issue of funding. I will admit that while I was a little reluctant to set up an account in the first place, and failed to share my work often, it has helped me connect with fellow artists, audiences, and potential clients. And so inadvertently helping build a machine to replace us through our simply sharing our work is, as you can imagine, infinitely detrimental.
To scroll through Instagram today is to see many thousands of posts detailing artists’ exits from the platform, their disgust with this new policy, and where they can be found. It’s really quite incredible.
And so, as with many artists chanting ‘we will not go down with this ship’, I too will be taking to the apparent life-raft that is Cara, a platform for artists and their audiences that is staunchly against this unethical use of AI and the treatment of artists in training said AI. With the sudden increase in users, it’s a little slow and laggy, but they’re clearly working hard to adapt, and so must we.
Though the seas ahead may be rough and unforgiving, it seems worth a shot for survival. And if nothing else, this page exists, as do the piles of sketchbooks beneath my desk.
