POEME: A Poetry Engine Powered by Your Movement

Abstract

The interactive movement installation, POEME: A Poetry Engine explores the relationship between bodily, mechanical and digital interpretations of movement. The installation grew out of our design of POEME, a mobile website that responds to movement with poetic verse. While the POEME website can be used virtually anywhere, the installation anchors the interaction to a tangible space. We reference the choreographed routines of mass transit by giving participants a virtual ticket which grants them entrance to a private performance space. The participant's movement is conveyed outside of the space in the form of measurements and poetic verse created from words that relate to mechanical theories of movement. In order to understand the relationship between these interpretations and the bodily movement that powers POEME, the audience must experience the interaction for themselves. POEME builds off prior work in body-centric, experiential design. In contrast to systems that seek to identify individual features of movement, we instead attempt to characterize and respond to whole kinesthetic experiences through poetic verse.