Snowblind

This collaborative poem was written for the CAVE at Brown University and is a relatively simple yet compelling argument for this kind of writing, initiated by Robert Coover in 2002. Other CAVE works reviewed in this blog have published video documentation of a performance, which is a far cry from the real deal, but considering it takes time and money to travel to Brown University to use their CAVE (and a prohibitive amount of money to build one), this will do. Soderman and Carter have gone a step further by providing access to the Cave Text Editor and the source files for readers to explore the work and run a preview of it.

A full screen preview allows readers to enter a VRML type of space in which texts are arranged on the inside walls, ceiling and floor of a cube. The reader has some limited navigation capability and can click on texts to do the graphical equivalent of pulling them from the background layer, which is mostly obscured by the a “snowstorm of white letters. The immersive experience is enhanced by a recording of Carter reading a poem, positioning us in the point of view of the poem’s speaker. It is a rare experience to be surrounded by language: lines of verse in space and time, with white symbols cascading about as you take it all in.

(Source: Leonardo Flores, I ♥ E-Poetry)