Select a region
Google has unveiled an interactive art installation that turns random words into poetry, which then appears on an electronic billboard in north London.
Called Poetrics, the installation is made up of 17 LED panels that display the words spoken into microphones placed at street level as randomly created poetry. It has been placed on the hoardings around the development site of Google’s new Kings Cross offices for passers-by to interact with, and is promoting the Knowledge Quarter’s upcoming Curious Arts Festival.
The project is the result of a competition run in partnership with University of the Arts London’s Central Saint Martins to create an “interactive experience for the Kings Cross community”.
The installation uses Google’s voice search technology and the Google Speech platform to recognise what is being said, and then placing it within the newly created poetry.
Google’s Peter Barron said of the project: “Thousands of people pass by our development site at Kings Cross every day so we wanted to create an experience which would help bring them together. We loved the idea from the students to produce randomly created poetry as passers-by talk into the installation.”
Laura Ventura Ricart, an MA Narrative Environments student and part of the Poetrics team, said: “We saw Poetrics as an opportunity for people to have a collective and meaningful experience playing with language and the absurd, just as the Dada did in their surrealist game ‘the Exquisite Corpse’.
“Poetrics’ interactive wall collects and assembles words spoken by the people of Kings Cross and turns them into random poetry made by all.”
