Background

The Procedural Poetry Funhouse is a Virtual Reality (VR) and desktop experience that uses play-based learning to reshape how students engage with poetry and AI. In this application, creative writing students physically engage with poetry and visually explore poetic themes through a series of immersive rooms. Each room represents a different stage of the writing process, incorporating AI-driven elements such as sentiment analysis and an interactive poetic “opponent” that students can confront and respond to as they navigate the experience.

Objective

This project has two main goals. Firstly, it seeks to redefine how people perceive the interaction between New Media and Creative Writing by combining emerging technologies with concrete poetry to create an interactive experience. Secondly, it seeks to expand upon existing pedagogy in the field of creative writing, becoming a teaching tool through which to teach procedural poetry and creativity.

The Team

Principal Investigator(s)

• Jennifer Moss, Lecturer, UBC’s School of Creative Writing
• A.E. Osworth, Lecturer, UBC’s School of Creative Writing
• Dr. Bronwen Tate, Assistant Professor of Teaching, UBC’s School of Creative Writing
• Ray Clark, Adjunct Professor, UBC’s School of Creative Writing

Student Team

• Dana Angela Neria, Developer (February 2026 – August 2026)
• Ahren Spadinger-Fengler, Developer (May 2026 – August 2026)
• Daniel-Hyun Yoo, Developer (September 2025 – December 2025)
• Toby Song, UI/UX Designer (September 2025 – April 2026)
• Shivangi Singh, UI/UX Designer (September 2025 – April 2026)
• Jaq Ai, Project Lead, UI/UX Designer (May 2025 – April 2026)
• Amy Yiqin Li, UI/UX Designer (May 2025 – April 2026)
• Daniel Lima, Developer (May 2025 – August 2025)
• Mariane Olivan, Project Lead, UI/UX Designer (May 2024 – August 2024)
• Julien Roy, Developer (May 2024 – August 2024)
• Walker Rout, Developer (May 2024 – August 2024)
• Ameya Goel, UI/UX Designer (June 2024 – August 2024)
• Jiho Kim, UI/UX Designer (May 2024 – August 2024)
• James Edralin, Developer (May 2024 – August 2024, September 2025 – April 2026)
• Samia Sajid, UI/UX Designer (May 2024 – June 2024)

Staff

• Phoebe Titus, 3D Generalist (July 2025 – May 2026)
• Julien Roy, Project Lead, Co-op Developer (May 2025-August 2025)
• Frederik Svendsen, Staff Developer (May 2024 – August 2024)
• Anushka Sharma, Staff Designer (May 2024 – August 2024)
• Dante Cerron, Staff Developer (November 2025 – May 2026)