Cassandra Loh

Strange Oceans is a poem designed for the digital age. Textually, it depicts how we socially interact in online spaces. As a designed artefact, it uses digital tools to extend and support the poem’s text. In the digital space, multimedia opportunities offer new textual behaviours that affect a work’s experience. By developing accessible and intuitive works for digitally native readers to operate, digital poetry can provide fruitful communication opportunities for powerful self-expression.

The poem investigated three main digital tools for their poetic effects through practice-led research: mouse events, animation, and typography. The most prominent use of these tools was as metaphors to persuade readers to feel or do something, as well as subtext to add layers of meaning to the text. Through these tools, the poem designed a space to encourage empathy and immersion.

Strange Oceans is a short interactive and animated experience that can be viewed in-browser (Chrome recommended).