Creative Digital Interventions into Poetry
Lead Research Organisation:
Newcastle University
Department Name: Sch of English Lit, Lang & Linguistics
Abstract
Working in partnership with Bloodaxe Books, I will investigate new ways of viewing poetry and related archival materials on digital platforms, using the digital content of the Bloodaxe Archive as an experimental space in which to develop new user interfaces and other creative responses to the material housed there. These experiments will inform the development of a new platform, or set of platforms, that presents the work of Bloodaxe poets in interactive and multimedia-focussed ways via digital media. These platforms will form part of Bloodaxe's online presence and contribute to audience engagement with the publisher's poetry output.
Organisations
| Title | Forgotten Nights (digital poem) |
| Description | 'Forgotten Nights' is a digital audio poem on the subject of memory and the night-sky. The main content of the piece is made up of short clips of recorded audio, the order of which are determined by the user through an interactive digital interface. It is built using web technologies (HTML/Javascript) and accessed through a web browser, but is listed here as a digital artefact as the web is only the method of delivery for the audio-interactive work, rather than the piece being a website in the usual sense. |
| Type Of Art | Artefact (including digital) |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| Impact | Disseminating this piece through the URL below, including by submitting it to the New Media Writing Prize, has generated several useful conversations with other writers and academics around the role of interaction in digital poetry and the relationship between digital media and poetry as an aural form. I have also been able to use the interface and its source code as a teaching aid when discussing digital writing with students, which has enabled me to expand the scope and depth of my teaching in this area by using an example that I understand in great detail and from a creative rather than critical or readerly perspective. |
| URL | https://sidestep.me/night-poem-2/ |
| Title | Reactions (poetry installation) |
| Description | 'Reactions' is an installation that presents recordings and text of poems from 'Messenger' by Christy Ducker (Smith Doorstop, 2015). Drucker's poems are themed around the science of immunology, and the installation presents these by creating a 'lab' with scientific equipment, such as microscopes and petri dishes, through which the poems can be read. The installation also has several NFC tags embedded in it, allowing the audience to use their smartphones to hear or watch recordings of the poems. The installation uses two poetry-films previously created by Kate Sweeney from poems in the same collection. The installation was created as an experiment in using different approaches to reading and hearing poems by allowing the themes of the work to guide the audience's encounter. |
| Type Of Art | Artefact (including digital) |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| Impact | The installation was shown at the 2019 'Corroding the Now' conference on poetry and science at Birkbeck University, London. This was an opportunity to use the installation to collect audience feedback on the impact of the piece along with reactions to the reading interfaces presented in the work. This feedback has been extremely useful for my research when developing subsequent themed poetry interfaces. |
| Title | Redactions/Redirections (poetry installation) |
| Description | This was a single-screen installation that displayed looped video of the output of a series of programs that I wrote in processing and HTML/Javascript. The programs generated kinetic texts from three erasure poems commissioned for the 2019 Newcastle Poetry Festival, exploring the ways that digital media can creative present the relationship between a text and its source material. This digital installation was also presented alongside printed versions of the poems in various physical formats. |
| Type Of Art | Artefact (including digital) |
| Year Produced | 2019 |
| Impact | Enter details of the reach and significance of the artistic or creative product or event you are reporting, for example, how widely it has been used or experienced and whether it has helped to stimulate significant changes in public attitudes, perception or behaviour. The piece was on public display in Northern Stage theatre, Newcastle, during the weekend of the Newcastle Poetry Festival, and so was viewed by several hundred visitors. The combination of presenting the poems in performance, in print, and in experimental digital form during the festival prompted discussion of how poetry can and should be presented in such settings, as well as how the capabilities of digital media can influence the ways that texts with explicit intertextual links to archival materials and the work of others - such as these erasure texts - are displayed to demonstrate these feature of the text. |
| URL | http://www.newcastlepoetryfestival.co.uk/redactions-redirections/ |
| Title | Bloodaxe Poetry mobile app |
| Description | This is a mobile application that allows users to read, listen to, and watch performances of a selection of Bloodaxe-published poetry. It is the first iteration of a larger project to develop new and novel ways to encounter and interact with poetry on mobile devices. |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Impact | Users have reported discovering new unfamiliar work through the app, increasing the scope of their knowledge of poetry. Reflecting on this version of the app has also prompted discussion within the project team and with workshop participants around the possible and desirable new ways of presenting poetry on digital devices. |
| Title | Crossings mobile app |
| Description | A mobile app that presents poems commissioned from eight poets by the Newcastle Poetry Festival in response to the paintings of Sean Scully. The app was an experiment in using the mobile device to present site-specific writing by allowing users to read and listen to the poems in the Hatton and Laing Galleries, where the paintings were on exhibition during the 2018 Newcastle Poetry Festival. |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2018 |
| Impact | Describe how widely the new or improved software/product/technology has been used, and the difference it has made (directly or indirectly) to those affected by its introduction. The app was popular over the weekend of the 2018 Newcastle Poetry Festival, with visitors reporting that the app encouraged them to visit the galleries involved in the poetry commission and allowed a different kind of experience to that normally found at a poetry festival. The app has been kept online to further encourage users to encounter the poetry and art work involved. |
| URL | http://www.newcastlepoetryfestival.co.uk/crossings-waves-and-bones-poetry-commissions/ |
| Description | Poetry app users workshops |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Various users and potential users of the Bloodaxe poetry app were invited to discuss their impression of the app's features, as well as contribute ideas for future features and their thoughts on proposed experimental interface designs. This resulted in several changes to the app design as well as an increase in app downloads and inquiries about the project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2018,2019 |