Cloud Reader creates a generative animation of text passages, determining an appropriate cadence using word length, punctuation and line endings. The words initially appear in a jumbled, wafting cloud until each of them, in turn, zoom forward towards the reader, displayed as originally written.

This project explores the nature of words and language - individual words are made meaningful in a context provided by other words.

The first version of this application uses poems by David St. John, Ellen Bass and Marie Howe. The input can be any text; animations have also been created from the text of the US Constitution and Presidential Debates.