The project is called "Journey Through Inscape".

Our target audience is anyone who would like to experience poetry through VR regardless of age or gender.

This project is an interactive 3D VR adaptation of Gerard Manley Hopkin’s poem, “Spring”.  Our aim is for this project to be an exhibition piece which could be showcased in museums such as the National Gallery of Ireland as it is both a piece of art but also a great learning tool when it comes to poetry, although this project isn’t specifically designed as an alternative for academic study, it can be used as a tool to help individuals interpret or visualise some of poetry’s more complicated themes and messages.

The main aim however, is for this project to use digital technology to present the medium of poetry in a visual and engaging format, like an interactive museum exhibit. Based on both our own personal experiencespoetry can be a challenging form of literature to grasp, as its usually written in a nonlinear fashion, compresses a lot of information in very few words and often leaves the user to interpret the meaning of the poem. This can leave people frustrated or dissatisfied with the medium. 

The VR technology used for this project allows users to visualize the poetry more easily by having the environment around them directly reflect the mood and visual descriptors within the poem. The users also get to explore a fictional environment similar to real life but with more magical and whimsical elements which make the environment more engaging and mysterious, this makes the experience deeper than just a literal representation of a poem. 

This 3D environment is a forest landscape made up of three levels which the users must journey through while listening to a reading of the poem. Each level is based on a different section of the poem and utilizes themes and imagery from its respective section in order to create an immersive walk-through experience, like a walking simulator or VR storybook to help users with visualizing the poetry.

This project had been shortlisted for the IDI 2023 Graduate Awards in the category "Design for Digital"