Interactive Haiku (Web Site)

“A very, very short form” that leads to “a compelling narrative, a deep artistic process, the relationship between form, content and authorial intent” while being “surprising, stirring and thought-provoking” … all of this adds up to quite a demanding design remit. And it can be summed up in one word: haiku!

Besides the fact that they can do all of these things and more, haiku are bound to a traditional Japanese literary form strictly defined in stanzas of 5-7-5 “sounds”. Trying to reconfigure written Japanese “sounds” into French or English “syllables” is challenging enough. However, the NFB and ARTE sought interactive haiku built literally from images and sounds. Nothing like a challenge to release pent-up creativity, as the competition results resoundingly demonstrate! What’s more, this challenge highlights the potential of the haiku freed from its literary domain.

As the twelve winning interactive haiku demonstrate in twelve very different ways, insight is the real source of haiku-power. Interactivity allows for a way to translate the classic technique of cutting (kiru) or juxtaposing ideas, allowing us to explore the hidden life of images, to hear the sound of … butter, and to reflect on the handful of moments that define us. Whether revealing the elegant simplicity at the heart of our universe, or the profound uniqueness of every tiny rock, or the mechanisms that drive us and give us meaning, the assembled haiku are at once powerful, eloquent and self-effacing. May these highly compressed technologies of insight prosper!