We hear, write, and speak countless words everyday, piecing them together unconsciously to convey our thoughts rapidly. We treat them as mere vehicles to get the message across, yet words not only define the world around us, they can dominate our emotions and mental processes at the same time.Japanese animator Ohashi Takashi dedicated his thesis project to studying this complex relationship between the growth of human intelligence and the transformation of words.Takashi’s film is called CHANNELER, stemming from the Japanese imageboard 2ch, where users are called “Nichannelers.” In his animation, he also makes reference to the ASCII art often found in 2ch. Takashi explains, “Man has the instinct to communicate with people, but intelligence is not necessarily there. Words are obsessed with intelligence at first but then can manipulate us, changing the way we interact between each other.”Inspired by the style of German animator Andres Hyukade’s love & thief, CHANNELER is the story man’s life illustrated by English and Japanese language characters. As the man grows older, the hip-hop soundtrack develops to incorporate more slang and variations in grammar and language structure. Gradually, we begin to observe the man turning into a monster, haunted by a world composed by words.Photos: OHASHI Takashi