Android download (Google Play)
This is a free mobile application developed in collaboration with Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts, Newcastle Institute for Creative Arts Practice and Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums. Eight poets were commissioned to write poems in response to the art of painter Sean Scully, whose work is currently being exhibited in the Hatton Gallery and Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle upon Tyne. Each poet was also recorded reading their poem, and the Crossings app aims to provide the reader of the poem with the opportunity to experience the text of the poem, the audio of the poem and the painting that inspired the poem simultaneously in order to increase the potential scope for interpretation and engagement with both the poetry and the artwork. The intention is that the reader downloads the app and visits the galleries, reading and listening to each poem while stood in front of the appropriate painting.
Like the Bloodaxe app, this project was created using Cordova, but is much smaller in scope than the Bloodaxe app, containing far fewer poems and only intended for a limited release period. The app controls allow the reader to adjust the size of the text on the screen, but the scope for manipulation of the text is much more tightly controlled than in the Bloodaxe app.