Analogue and Digital Immersive Experiences: What should digital creators learn from live theatre makers?

In every century, there are different apparatuses that are redefining and refining the notion of immersion. After experiencing panoramas, planetariums or even IMAX movies, we are now longing to see whether VR can really fulfil our expectations. We are ready to offer all our senses and to experience new situations and to be present somewhere else. But is the virtual reality’s medium prepared for these expectations? Meanwhile the immersive theatre’s genre is spreading and engaging the audience for couple of hours into their very peculiar environments. The aim of my research is to point out different features of live theatre that, when combined with or added to VR-experiences, can enhance the immersion and create more realistic illusions. My investigation is related to narratology and reception studies, and is based on recent findings related to VR. First I’m going to present through some examples how 360-degree fictional movies are exploring their specialties by transferring the narrative literally into the viewers head (e.g. Alteration by Jerome Blanquet, or Rhizomat VR by Mona el Gammal) as a way to capture the viewers empathy more. In immersive performances the audience is considered a participant with a given role. This way the narrative environment is constructed in such a way that allows the participants to unfold the story by directing their focus to carefully planned details. This does not make the participants the story’s protagonist, but they can become the protagonist of the experience itself. They can have a variety of experiences that are directly addressing all of their senses creating more suspense. Based on different examples, I will point out various tactics that VR-movie creators can use to draft their own language and offer more inputs for their viewers. I will also point out how to create such environments for using the VR HMD that can dramatically be built into a viewing situation, without having the forced isolation feeling. My research is based on an audience survey made in June 2017 in Mannheim following a performance by SIGNA, on several interviews conducted with immersive theatre makers, and also on hermeneutical analysis of different VR creations.

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ágnes Karolina Bakk

Conference

Publication date: July 2018

Publication date (Print): July 2018

Pages: 293-297

Affiliations

[0001]Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design

Budapest and Sapientia Hungarian University of Transylvania

1131-HU Budapest Násznagy 26/b, Hungary

Article

DOI: 10.14236/ewic/EVA2018.57

SO-VID: 05fa9bf6-076b-4b41-afea-0093e6d2b1f1

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Conference name: Electronic Visualisation and the Arts

Conference acronym: EVA

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Conference location: London, UK

Conference date: 9 - 13 July 2018

Conference sponsor: Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)

Conference theme: Electronic Visualisation and the Arts

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Product Information: 1477-9358BCS Learning & Development

Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/EVA2018.57

Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/

REFERENCES

D. DolanM. Parets 2016 Redefining The Axiom Of Story: The VR And 360 Video Complex http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/14/redefining-the-axiom-of-story-the-vr-and-360-video-complex/ (retrieved 26 March 2018
E. Fischer-Lichte 2008 The Transformative Power of Performance: A New Aesthetics Routledge London
O. Grau 2004 Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion MIT Press Cambridge
A. Griffiths 2008 Shivers Down Your Spine MIT Press Cambridge
K. Isbister 2016 How Games Moves Us. Emotion by Design Columbia University Press Columbia

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[1] D. DolanM. Parets 2016 Redefining The Axiom Of Story: The VR And 360 Video Complex http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/14/redefining-the-axiom-of-story-the-vr-and-360-video-complex/ (retrieved 26 March 2018

[2] E. Fischer-Lichte 2008 The Transformative Power of Performance: A New Aesthetics Routledge London

[3] O. Grau 2004 Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion MIT Press Cambridge

[4] A. Griffiths 2008 Shivers Down Your Spine MIT Press Cambridge

[5] K. Isbister 2016 How Games Moves Us. Emotion by Design Columbia University Press Columbia