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This dissertation presents a number of previously-forgotten practices and ‘expected opportunities’ which surrounded film at the Swedish National Museum of Fine Arts (Nationalmuseum), between 1945 and 1950. The dissertation is structured around three projects and each project has its own chapter. The three projects are: (1) the educational film production entitled Möte med konsten which took place in connection with the exhibition entitled God konst i hem och samlingslokaler; the exhibition entitled Viking Eggeling 1880–1925 which included (2) showings of Viking Eggeling’s abstract film called Diagonalsymfonin (Diagonal Symphony) in the exhibition and (3) the related film series called 30 år experimentfilm (30 years of experimental film) which included films by Maya Deren, Man Ray, Fernand Léger, Jean Cocteau, Hans Richter and Viking Eggeling. The purpose of this dissertation is primarily to investigate the areas of use and ‘expected opportunities’ associated with film in these film projects as well as the prerequisites and implementation of working with film at the museum. Because media technologies are closely interwoven with human life, a number of individuals have been identified as important figures with respect to the curation and exhibition of film at Nationalmuseum between 1945 and 1950. The analysis of these figures’ speculations, their administration, and ‘expected opportunities’ has resulted in the creation of new knowledge with respect to the museum’s operations in post-war Sweden. In summary, the present dissertation highlights the medium of film’s role and importance for those individuals inside Nationalmuseum who, in response to contemporary needs (but also with an eye to the future) worked towards developing the museum. Film was seen as an answer to the question of how an art museum such as Nationalmuseum might be able to revitalise its operations and remain relevant to a new generation’s tastes and habits with respect to the consumption of art- and culture. In their work with film, they opened up the museum’s art division to working with modern abstract art in non-conventional forms, attempted to reach new sectors of the public and reinforced the contemporary relevance of the museum in a local cultural context. This dissertation thus does not only present new knowledge about the history of film at the art museum, of which it is an obvious part of today, but also new knowledge about Nationalmuseum. From a broader perspective, this dissertation also demonstrates how it is possible take the field of art museum research in a somewhat different and relatively unexplored direction, namely, in the direction of media history.

The aim of this thesis is to study Viking Eggeling’s artwork Diagonal Symphony together with Eggeling’s own art theoretical writings. This method of reading Eggeling’s art theoretical writings with the aim to try and create a deeper understanding of his art and especially Diagonal Symphony is a new approach in Eggeling’s art historical discourse. The thesis starts with a description of how the field of art history has understood Eggeling and his art primarily through art historical research aimed at Hans Richter. I then argue that the method of understanding Eggeling’s art through his own art historical writings is a way to create an independent understanding about Eggeling’s art away from it’s explanatory relation with Richter. To understand and to analyze the relation between Eggeling’s art and art theoretical writings the thesis theoretical viewpoint are a system theoretical one with a special focus on cybernetics and the terms feedback and control. The thesis then establish that Eggeling, in his art and art theoretical writings, tried to compose his own method for creating the form figures we can see appearing in Diagonal Symphony and that this method of creating form was a way for Eggeling to control his creativity and to build up a structured system of forms. The study then concludes with the statement that Eggeling worked with the movie and the scrolls Diagonal Symphony as artistic material formations of a system of forms called Diagonal Symphony and that the system of forms called Diagonal Symphony is the result of Eggeling’s systematic method to generate form in a structured and organised way.