Forever Yearning

Digital, Motion Graphics
2019

American novelist Richard Wright spent the final 18 months of his life composing a collection of haikus, one of which was selected as the framework for this work. The haiku served as a launching point for motion graphics to enter and subvert its original meaning. By blurring and, in some cases, morphing words that shared close roots with those from the haiku (ever/never/forever), the animation provides nuanced cues for the viewer to comprehend the tonality of Wright’s haiku as the words of a dying man coming to terms with his own mortality. Grainy, distorted video footage was layered onto a black background to give the words depth while shapes and lines flit in and out of the frame to further enhance the dimensionality. The sound, mixed in Adobe Audition, involved reversing and cutting up a pre-existing song with lyrics to create a sound that was almost understandable but still out of reach; this allowed the music to reflect the familiarity and incomprehensibility of death that we all encounter.