The Semiotics of Digital Imagery and Poetic Text in Interactive Poetry "The Trees of the Strait by Munim Al-Azraq as a Model"

Abstract

This study examines the interactive poem as one of the most significant transformations that the literary field has witnessed in the modern era. The interactive poem is no longer a closed text confined to its verbal content; rather, it has become a multimedia space in which word, image, sound, and motion merge within an interconnected digital communicative structure. Studying this work from a semiotic perspective reveals the mechanisms of meaning production in interactive texts, through the interaction of visual and linguistic signs to generate new meanings that transcend traditional (print-based) poetry.

The focus is on the nature of this transformation that has affected textual structure: the text is no longer measured solely by the boundaries of written language, but has become a space where signs coexist and interact to produce new modes of signification. For example, the image does not serve a decorative or supplementary role; rather, it enters into the very fabric of meaning and reshapes the horizon of reception. Meanwhile, sound and music function as rhythmic elements that go beyond traditional metrical structures, creating an internal, shifting music that contributes to opening the text to multiple interpretive possibilities. As for movement and the temporal dimension in digital display interfaces, they establish a dynamic discourse that positions the reader as an active participant rather than a passive receiver. The reader chooses the pathways of reading and controls the mechanisms of transition between textual and visual units, opening the door to a nonlinear reading experience that reconfigures the relationship between text and reader. The concept of “nonlinearity” here does not signify the absence of order or structure, but rather an alternative system based on branching, multiplicity, and openness, where the experience is built upon different possibilities and trajectories. This invites the reader to participate in constructing meaning through interaction with multimedia elements. Thus, the recipient becomes a partner in producing the text, not merely a contemplative reader.