Category: Poetry
Some thoughts on AR Poetry
For those who knew me before Critical Lit Games will know that I’ve loved writing and performing poetry. It’s a way for me to get thoughts out in writing without having to necessarily frame it in the same way as I would for prose like short stories or novellas (or plays, for that matter). Critical Lit Games was initially a way of blending text based, poetry and immersive mediums together – I then developed (and am still developing as we speak) an AR Gamebook, going back to prose and gaming elements.
Since Lens Studio came out, the idea of creating quick literary experiences really appealed to me. With something as popular as Snapchat, these codes could be easily distributed and experienced in a short period of time. It also led me to think of what AR really is and how poetry could benefit from it.
From someone who has published poetry online and in book form, as well as performing spoken word, it’s interesting to see where AR could fit within this spectrum of form. I’m all for poetry shared in a myriad of ways – print books, Instagram, physical and online stages, brick walls, napkins etc. and it’s about finding the strength of the medium to really unlock its unique potential.
So… long story short. AR Poetry can be a new form of framing.
Performance strives in the present. When we are physically within the space, you drink in the atmosphere; experiencing the senses first hand (as much as we technically can) – sights, sounds, touch, smells. There is a commitment, an investment to go to a live performance (especially nowadays) and this is the payoff. There is a reason where live events will be timeless and always a part of our lives, no matter what technology we have.
Recorded poetry, in video and book form, is about preservation. You can connect to someone in the past, whether it’s from a few hours ago to centuries ago. You can savour the words over and over again as they were laid down. It is posterity, a legacy, which found its home in you.
Augmented reality poetry can thrive in its framing. It creates meaning in its attachment to the surrounding area. For example, I wrote a poem for a daily commute to be used on someone’s route to work, school or college – seeing the journey in a new way. I wrote a poem for the snow (another form of augmented reality) It provides a commentary based on your experience in the present, but recorded in the past. You can embody the words; walk through them, reach out and touch them, sit down next to them. I would love to see people with the snap code film it in their life, seeing how the same frame can co-exist in so many realities. Maybe it’s a hybrid form?
Another thing I’m working on is the audio input: where the reading/recording can activate on proximity to the words. Maybe there can be a sense of participation on the receiver’s end, where they can “rearrange” the poem in terms of voice?
There’s a lot to think about and work out – that’s why I love it so much!
Feel free to share your thoughts with me – I’d love a discussion on this! I have made a new Instagram for my AR Poetry, so you can try out the Snapcodes there!
Of course, there’s always my Snapchat – search for @criticallitgames!
Suzie
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Mind the Gap – Figuring it All Out pt.1
I’ve been thinking about this since I started writing – and it’s something that’s informed most of my writing life over different mediums.
I feel as though I’ve had my fingers in a lot of literary pies – I’ve written novellas, short stories, plays, poems and even a screenplay (as part of my MA Creative Writing module) and it’s very much like learning a different language.
This comes with the difficulty of “translating” or “transposing” a narrative from one form to another.
Each mode has its constraints and its own way to be creative – and of course, this varies in opinion. Here’s one example: my PhD thesis on Science Fiction Theatre argued the importance of dialogue and performance in world building as opposed to the visual detail of film.
It’s a nice coincidence that it’s National Poetry Month in April, as I’ve been figuring out how to fill in or stretch out gaps when poetry is transposed to a digital/virtual/augmented medium.
I’ve said in one of my Instagram posts that: “Poetry is not the breadcrumb of narrative/But the bird who pecks at it and disturbs the trail”.
There are many ways in which poetry is consumed, taking into account the oral playground of sounds and rhythms in performance poetry to the way the words sit upon the page, either highlighting presence or absence by its negative space.
So how can it work digitally?
It’s not a new phenomenon, by any means. Digital poets from Theo Lutz to Stephanie Strickland, Jason Nelson, Loss Pequeño Glazier and many more have been doing this for a while. It allows for a different kind of interactivity, of dissemination, of understanding. I’ll talk more about this on a future blog.
Virtual Reality’s hallmarks appear to be presence and immersion, two things I touched upon in my PhD in a theatrical sense. Maybe it’s no coincidence that Artonin Artaud mentions the illusory nature of theatre as “la réalité virtuelle” in 1938. With constraints comes a different form of creativity – and VR is no exception, particularly when in its relative infancy as an art form.
Every piece of art lends not only a different way of viewing the world, but a way of conversing with the audience. It should, in my opinion, leave space for the reader to interact: from leaving a message in a virtual arena to creating a unique interpretation from a line of printed or spoken poetry.
There’s a video that Barry Kramer (from the Game Grumps) made that illustrates this idea exceptionally well when it comes to video game design:
So, long story short (the old fashioned way of TL:DR) – I’ve been trying to figure out the balance of telling and showing, that old chestnut.
Can VR poetry just be slabs of text pasted on a photo-realistic environment? I’m not too sure on that. There has to be a connect, for the pieces to fit together rather than hastily arranged. It has to mesh somehow in a way that feels intuitive.
Hello How Are You is VR because you’re inhabiting different people’s perspectives and what they wish to see (or not see) in the world. As we interact with a train of thought/conversation, we get linked to a particular character and get led down their rabbit hole of being. The words either follow or movement or become part of the scenery according to their wishes.
The game isn’t photorealistic by any means – and that is to reflect how they are building themselves into the reality, much like myself creating this environment. You get to see it develop and change over time, just like the words and sounds.
In the next blog, I’ll be talking about the AR poetry books I’ve been developing and how it can add rather than distract from the reading experience (here’s hoping!).
Suzie
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