Synopsis
Set inside a brightly colored 8-bit video game, "We Want More" turns modern life into a repetitive survival challenge. Pixelated figures run on treadmills, collect college degrees, chase money, follow social expectations, and move through systems that appear designed to keep them in place. Men and women are pushed together by arrows, while others enter a mysterious opening in an endless procession. The imagery presents ambition, consumption, work, education, and relationships as programmed behaviors within a closed world.
Factoids & Trivia
- The video was made in 2010 and runs for approximately 5 minutes and 44 seconds.
- "We Want More" was one of Wong Ping's earliest animations. He later described the project as coming after only one or two previous short works.
- The song's electropop demo immediately suggested the visual language of 8-bit video games. The deliberately limited, game-like world became a way of expressing confusion and helplessness.
- Wong Ping said he approached the video intuitively rather than creating a literal illustration of the lyrics. He was more interested in placing seemingly unrelated images together within the same composition.
- The animation has been described as an examination of the division between rich and poor, overwhelming information, and the over-development of contemporary society.
- The video's recurring ideas of treadmill-like labor, educational qualifications, consumption, and programmed social behavior give the song's desire for "more" a distinctly critical edge.
- FRUITPUNCH wrote and arranged the song. Additional drum programming and backing vocals were contributed by Chen Mingze.
- The track appears on FRUITPUNCH's album "Wind and Sea," released by POCH Records.
- The video later entered art and moving-image exhibition programs, including screenings connected with the Shenzhen Independent Animation Biennale and LOOP Barcelona.