Protest gets poetic touch with this app

Poetry is a powerful means of expression and it has the potential to shape our way of thinking. It is a very passive yet very strong form of showing resistance and we have always relied on poetry to convey our collective emotion. 

Taking a step further, Sheetal Sivaramakrishnan, a brand consultant and designer, has launched a mobile app called Air Poetry, which allows a multi-sensory usage of poetry.

“The inspiration to develop Air Poetry was to be able to put poetry in places and cannot be erased. Given the current political situation, I thought it would be important for us to express solidarity with protests that are happening across the country. 

Through this app, one can leave a pre-composed phrase on any surface (in the sky) as long as their phone camera is pointed at that spot. 

The users can also share it on social media to increase the impact with the hashtag #airpoetry. We have launched the first series in Air Poetry called Peace Poetry,” says Sheetal.

Though the app is available on both iOS and Android platforms, iOS is far more advanced. This self-funded project was developed and supported by Jithin MS and the team from Kitebe Pvt Ltd. 

The team’s aim was to combine something simple as poetry with augmented reality (AR) and make it accessible before it becomes commercial.

There are three phases for this AR-poetry project — the first is the preliminary phase that’s already launched. “When a user opens the app, he/she can view three phrases — they can choose one and augment it up to five times onto their surroundings. 

There would be a visible marker and the user can touch the screen to place the poetry at a particular place. This is the first phase. In an Android device, one can augment the poetry only once. In the second phase, the users will be able to write their own poetry. 

Once we receive the poetry, we will filter it to prevent abusive language and once it is approved, the user can share it. The third phase is an ambitious one and takes more time to implement. If you leave poetry at a particular location, another user will be able to see the same three or four days later,” explains Sheetal.

We know that AR has had far-reaching effects on various fields like education, medicine, entertainment and so on. However, large-scale AR is still in its inception stage and Sheetal hopes to change it.

“We faced a few technical difficulties like panning the camera and understand the gyro of the camera. Also, while developing the app, we have made sure that it does not access any private information and there is no privacy breach. 

Currently, we are not running any advertisements on the application. We have taken a lot of care to make this one-of-a-kind experience to the users without flouting any rules,” she sums up.