Solace
An immersive VR experience that uses Western and Emirati poetic traditions to design affective environments that transform abstract concepts like loneliness, memory, and identity into interactive, spatial, and felt experiences. Published at ArtsIT.
VR
Technical Art
Indigenous Knowledge
UX
Product Design
Overview
Solace is a virtual reality narrative poem that integrates Western and Emirati Nabati poetic traditions to explore loneliness and the search for inner comfort. By treating VR not as an adaptive platform for existing poetry, but as a native poetic medium, Solace composes poetry directly through VR’s auditory, visual, and spatial affordances.
The experience is set in a vast desert landscape, where users traverse a circular track while witnessing moments of Rima’s life through hand-drawn animations, spatial soundscapes, and narrative pauses. Loneliness emerges not through text, but through shadows, wind, absence, and environmental symbolism.
Publications | Exhibitions |
|---|---|
Alvarenga, T. (2026). Solace: Integrating Western and Emirati Poetic Traditions to Reimagine Narrative Poetry in VR. ArtsIT, Interactivity and Game Creation. 2024. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-97257-7_14 | 13th EAI ArtsIT Poster Presentation Session, Abu Dhabi, UAE (2024) Interactive Media Capstone Festival, NYU Abu Dhabi, UAE (2023) |
Project Details
My Role: Creator and Developer, Researcher
Technologies / Methods: Unity (C#), Oculus Quest 2, Harmony by ToonBoom, Photoshop, DaVinci Resolve
Team: Solo Project
Timeline: April 2022 - November 2024
Funded by New York University Interactive Media Capstone Grant
The Problem
Poetry in VR is often designed as an adaptation—placing pre-existing poems inside virtual environments without leveraging the unique poetic potential of VR. This limits VR to being merely a display medium rather than a creative vehicle for poetic expression.
The Solution
Solace proposes VR narrative poetry as a new poetic form—one that uses rhythm, spatial pacing, sound, and environment as poetic devices. Drawing from Western narrative poetry and Emirati Nabati traditions, Solace utilizes:
Onomatopoeic landscapes (wind, sand, desert acoustics)
Metric pauses (moments of stillness that prompt emotional reflection)
Circular narrative track structure to emphasize cycles of solitude
The desert as metaphor for loneliness and self-discovery
Hand-drawn 2D animations and symbolic characters (snake, shadow, oasis) inspired by Arabic storytelling and poetic animal symbolism
