Leia Kook-Chun

Paper Plane Poetry is a digital interactive artwork that becomes communal poetry with user interaction. On its own, paper planes fly across the screen. With user interaction, the paper planes can be clicked to make the text trail appear or disappear behind them and the content of the text can be changed. Paper Plane Poetry is set up with questions and answers of various levels of intimacy – some questions are casual and lighthearted (i.e. “dogs or cats?”) while others are serious and prompt the viewer to reflect (i.e. “what do you regret most?”). Paper Plane Poetry has a high sense of impermanence and chance. The paper planes are randomly given a colour, speed, location, and transparency which change each time they exit and re-entre the screen. With the paper planes random movement, poetry is left to chance and is displayed for a few seconds before the poetic lines drift apart. The likelihood of seeing the same poem twice is unlikely. Altogether, the paper planes, their text, their randomness, and the user interaction work to create poetry which can be both elegant and playful; ultimately, what Paper Plane Poetry becomes rests in the hands of the community.