›Poetic Intervention‹ is a web anthology and bachelor thesis that explores the poetic potential of graphic design and code. While the design and programming of websites is often geared towards a universal, frictionless and profit-orientated experience, poetry dares to be personal, unconventional and non-functional. This website uses ideas of poetry to play with the aesthetic qualities of language and breaks free from the conventions of how a website should look and work.
Concrete and visual poetry have been a big influence on this project. Since antiquity people have been experimenting with the shape of text, further developing around the 20th century, where most of the inspiration for my poetic works comes from. Each poetic experiment which makes up this web anthology is a reference to works of visual poets while also learning from alternative ideas about the web from contemporary graphic designers.
Through the medium of the web these poetic works are confronted with new possibilities of interaction, ephemerality and randomness that haven’t been possible in their static analog form. At the same time poetry opens up an interdisciplinary and more experimental view on graphic design and programming. Treating a website like a poem makes you think about it in a more open and creative way. It helps to shape a place where users themselves can get creative and feel welcomed to interact and self-reflect.
Nele Harbke
B.A. Kommunikationsdesign
Prof. Heike Grebing & Simon Thiefes
HAW Hamburg 2025