02Le Bateau ivre

A poem whose lines are the sea.

“Et dès lors, je me suis baigné dans le Poème / De la Mer” — so the lines are the water. Rimbaud’s hundred alexandrines drift down the page: the words act out what they say, a paper boat rides the stanzas, green water rises at the fifth, colour comes in watercolour washes, the storm turns the page black, the maelstrom winds the lines into a spiral, and it all ends in a black puddle.

Gestures: Scroll — go down the river · Hover — stir the water · Click — throw a stone
Tools: Sound (S) — the surf, synthesised · Vowels (V) — Rimbaud’s colours, A black, E white, I red, U green, O blue · Calm sea (C)
Text: Arthur Rimbaud, 1871 — as established by Paul Hartmann, after Verlaine’s copy
Typeface: Playfair by Claus Eggers Sørensen (SIL OFL): optical size, width and weight, every letter a variable
Technique: DOM and CSS 3D for the letters, WebGL for the sea and the light, Three.js for the paper boat, Web Audio for the surf. Everything live; nothing filmed.
Status: In progress — 2026