Writing Spatial Poetry & Lyrics in AR
When ARKit came out, I was blown away by how good the tracking was. I immediately wanted to make an app. I love painting apps like Tilt Brush, but I thought - what if you could paint with words?
I started thinking a lot about spatial writing. This reminded me of an AR experience I tried at Brown, in their CAVE virtual environment. We were guided through a poem and words swirled all around us as the poem was narrated.
Then I remembered something my roommate Steve had in college -- you know those fridge magnets with a bunch of words on them, that you can rearrange them to make impromptu poetry? Incredibly therapeutic and so much fun to play with.
my buddy steve's fridge
Combining inspiration from both of these experiences, I built a spatial poetry app using Unity, ARKit, and wordsets from Magnetic Poetry.
I think this is ultimately a tool for overcoming writer's block, whether you're writing poetry, lyrics, or prose. Now, when we get writer's block, we tend to just sit at our laptops and think HARDER -- it's the most frustrating thing. But staying in a sedentary position is rarely helpful. Lyric ARt encourages you to get up and move, which genuinely shakes things up and helps the creative juices flow. Kinesthetic engagement is HUGE for creativity and learning -- studies have repeatedly shown that physical engagement improves understanding of math, physics, and language (see my essay on the neuroscience of experiential language learning). An NYU lab is even researching how fidget toys actually can boost creativity!
Moving around and using spatial reasoning helps us connect the dots we couldn't see before.