The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won;
 

O BROWSER, MY BROWSER is a browser translation of Walt Whitman’s 1900 poem, “O Captain, My Captain” from Leaves of Grass. In the original poem, the death of a ship’s captain is an allegorical reference to the death of U.S. president Abraham Lincoln. In this reinterpretation, the allegory shifts to the impending death of the web. Here, short clips of YouTube videos (all 24 found by a search on the site using keywords from each line of the poem) provide a background noise, or a context, to interfere with or aid the reading of the poem.

This project was created with the help of TERMINAL, an annual award for net art from Austin Peay State University. Please view the source code for a list of video credits.