“6-string Aria” by Bill Marsh

This brief video poem is delicately built from just a few simple elements: a guitar aria, five handwritten letters, simple animation, and a handful of words scheduled into the presentation. The poem explores different meanings one can arrive from the elements of the word aria, such as air and area. As the letters move and rotate around a common axis, they delineate a space for different readings, as well as the implied space of a relationship in trouble. The gentle reconfiguration of the two hand-drawn “I”s into two mathematical symbols suggest a resolution to the conflict implied by the text, particularly when juxtaposed with the final clustering of the letters.

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