Immersive Environments

Entrare nell’immagine: un desiderio che accompagna l’umanità
dall’alba dei tempi, perdendosi nelle nebbie del mito. Un desiderio
che nei secoli ogni cultura visuale ha cercato di realizzare con
i mezzi di volta in volta disponibili. E che oggi le tecnologie di realtà
virtuale promettono di soddisfare: l’immagine si fa ambiente immersivo,
ci avvolge a 360 gradi, è presenza in carne e ossa. Saltano
le cornici che la confinavano in un mondo a parte. Persino il
medium in cui si concretizza sembra farsi trasparente. Una volta
aperto il passaggio fra il mondo reale e il mondo iconico, dobbiamo
però aspettarci un varco percorribile nei due sensi: penetriamo
nel mondo dell’immagine, ma l’immagine esonda nel nostro
mondo. Al desiderio si accompagna il timore per tale tracimazione.
Questo libro esplora quel doppio movimento, e ricostruisce la
storia di quel desiderio-timore, delle fantasie che ha innescato e
delle strategie escogitate per corrispondervi: dal proto-immersivo
Narciso ai caschi VR, passando per il trompe-l’oeil e le sculture
viventi, gli specchi e le architetture illusionistiche, i panorami e le
fantasmagorie, l’arte-ambiente, il cinema in 3D. Indugiando sulla
soglia che al contempo separa e congiunge quei due mondi, ne
subiamo il fascino, e ne apprezziamo il rischio.

In this paper, we review the use of virtual and augmented reality technologies for capture and externalization of tacit knowledge from complex activity in knowledge-intensive professions. We focus on technologies for converting experience hidden in activity with the aim to boost industry competitiveness, innovation, and facilitate learning on the job. As such types of knowledge and experience are difficult to capture and represent in traditional media, we explore emerging technology along two lines of investigation. First, we look at applications of virtual reality to then, second, focus on using sensors, augmented reality, and wearable technologies. We discuss existing and future applications of experience capturing with virtual and augmented reality technologies. This review provides a comprehensive overview for those interested in recording virtual, real, and augmented activities, methods for delivering the recorded data, and extracting knowledge.

In an essay on the picture frame, Georg Simmel claims the sacredness of this device considered fun- damental for the dialectical articulation of the delicate relationship between art and reality which con- stitutes, for the german philosopher, the core of his aesthetic meditations, including those on theatre. In the most contemporary forms of immersive theatre it is nevertheless no longer the framing of the proscenium – that imaginary “fourth wall”, according to a purely visual approach, through which the audience observes actions on stage – that threshold-figure (according to Simmel’s viewpoint) to which the function of separating and connecting the factual reality of the spectator and the counterfactual one of the (dramatic) possible world is delegated. In fact, in the immersive theatre this boundary devi- ce is embodied by the actor himself, who becomes the figure responsible for the continuous transfor- mation and transfiguration of the performative frame, decidedly more opaque and less transparent than to more traditional theatrical forms, such as bourgeois drama.
We are, therefore, in presence of a sort of 2.0 fictionality, no longer delegated to that specific fictional frame marked by boundary indicators such as the darkness in theater room, the curtain, the silence, etc. Actually, in this new kind of fictionality bodily matter and aesthesia at stake in the actor-spectator experience are solely account for the establishment of the performative frame.

This article refers to ongoing research related to the Postdoctoral project " multichannel audio devices applied to music, sound art and bioacoustics " developed by the author for UFF (2016-2018) with support from CAPES and in collaboration with the Laboratory of Acoustics and Sound Arts – LASom/DM/IA/UNICAMP. This work aims to (1) consolidate a spatial sound projection device involving signal processing; and (2) its application in the arts (music) and science (biology and ecology) domains.

Mit diesem Titel liegt eine veröffentlichte Magisterarbeit vor, deren redaktioneller Beschreibungstext auf dem Buchrücken einen „Blick über den Tellerrand hinaus“ verspricht. Dieses Versprechen soll sich durch drei Leitaspekte einlösen, die den Einfluss von virtuellen Welten auf das menschliche Verhalten fokussieren, zweitens das Suchtpotenzial und die Isolation von der Außenwelt thematisieren und drittens die neuen sozialen Komponenten beleuchten, die durch die ‚Begehung’ virtueller Welten ermöglicht werden.

Becoming commercially available in the mid 1960s, video quickly became integral to the intense experimentalism of New York City's music and art scenes. The medium was able to record image and sound at the same time, which allowed composers to visualize their music and artists to sound their images. But as well as creating unprecedented forms of audiovisuality, video work also producedinteractive spaces that questioned conventional habits of music and art consumption. This book explores the first decade of creative video work, focusing on the ways in which video technology was used to dissolve the boundaries between art and music.

Modern interactive means combined with new digital media processing and representation technologies can provide a robust framework for enhancing user experience in multimedia entertainment systems and audiovisual artistic installations with non-traditional interaction/feedback paths based on user affective state. In this work, the? Elevator? interactive audiovisual platform prototype is presented, which aims to provide a framework for signalling and expressing human behaviour related to emotions (such as anger) and ...

In seinem zukunftsweisenden Text The Cyborg’s Dilemma: Embodiment in Virtual Environments (1997) entwickelte Frank Biocca das Konzept des progressive embodiment. Mit diesem Theoriekonzept entwirft Biococa ein interaktionistisches Modell des mediatisierten Raumes, in welchem sich physischer Körper und technologische Apparatur über ein komplex gestaltetes Interface miteinander verbinden lassen. Diese Verbindung bleibt allerdings nicht ein rein technisches Kalkül, sondern mündet direkt im kognitionsphilosophischen ›Cyborg’s Dilemma‹ und der damit verbundenen Problemstellung, wie sich das subjektivierte Ich während der rezeptiven Verkörperung innerhalb digitaler Bildsimulationen autonom von der artifiziellen Präsenz des Technischen abgrenzen kann. Dies führt zu der bereits europhänomenologisch anmutenden Frage: »Where am ›I‹ present?«.
Mit Blick auf aktuelle Medientechnologien – vor allem in Bezug
auf immersive Interfaces und Displays – lässt sich plausibel vom
progressive embodiment oder von Medien der Verkörperung in zweifacher Hinsicht sprechen: Zum einen unterstützen die von Biococa genannten Interfaces die virtuelle Verkörperung der Rezipienten in den simulierten Bildraum hinein; und zum anderen entwickeln sich die Medien immer stärker zu ›Körpern der Bilder‹, indem sie eine multimodale und damit sinnlich-extensive Repräsentation erlauben.

Conclusion:

The best video games are microworlds, which present the learner with the simplest case scenarios, yet offer increasingly complex situations based on these rules. Regardless of the
comparative perceptual caveats of other media, the video game provides many opportunities simply via it’s interactive nature for future growth in the depth of experiences we can explore (with fault tolerance). Ideally, a self-aware game, which counters the players actions through a flow type mechanism, could facilitate a game world with more valuable experiences than Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill. The video game has the capability to take our present one way television absorption, and replace it with a conversation with whomever (or whatever) we choose. On the hypothetical grounds that there is a correlation between absorption (enjoyment) of a story and personal involvement, the video game stands to break new ground in human fictional experience.

Nature has had her day;she has finally and utterly exhausted the patience of sensitive observers by the revolting uniformity of her landscapes and skyscapes. In fact there is not a single one of her inventions, deemed to subtle and sublime, that human ingenuity cannot manufacture.
(Des Esseintes, cited in Against Nature /A Rebours p.22-23 - 2003)

Experiences of cultural heritage and tourism have been enhanced by the development of digital technologies. In light of this, this paper focuses on the importance of immersive storytelling experiences to encourage visitors’ engagement through VR and the evocative and emotional storytelling of events and contexts.
After an introduction  to the best practices from Italy and abroad in the last years, the paper focuses on the VR immersive storytelling of the 1693 earthquake, which destroyed 70 cities in south-eastern Sicily. The survivors, revealing great resilience, soon rebuilt their cities. The well-known Baroque city of Noto, a UNESCO site since 2002, was rebuilt on another site, so abandoning the destroyed one (Noto Antica).
Through an immersive film in VR (25 min.), commissioned by the Noto Municipality, the last moments of the city are recounted, creating a “digital bridge” between generations to regain awareness of their ancient roots. The VR project stands out for its participatory production process involving a commission  of experts and  3D casting of its modern citizens, and the tragic nature of the event, recounted through the emotional and evocative account of a recent earthquake and the solution adopted following the COVI-19 pandemic (in situ, on YouTube VR and Vimeo).

Cultures from around the world have long turned to the dome of the heavens to better understand the cosmos. As this perceived curvature has manifested architecturally throughout the world, domes have been used to enclose the most sacred environments of many cultures. The rounded enclosures have often been used as canvases upon which to represent psycho-cosmological constructs, painted with artistic renderings of incorporeal ideals. From Buddhist stupas to Islamic mosques to Christian cathedrals, these structures have been used as places of ritual, indoctrination, and transcendence. With both internal and external surfaces often steeped in visually symbolic and geometric meaning, domes have artistically and architecturally represented the worldviews from which they arose and were meant to sustain. In the 20th century, it became possible for the first time to radially extend mental images onto the dome screen using projections of light. Made possible by advancements in engineering, mechanics, and electronics, the ability to completely immerse the visual field of audiences in a mediated environment was seized upon by numerous pioneers in a wide range of contexts. Like their predecessors, these modern multi-sensory sanctuaries continued to reflect the cosmologies and motivations of their creators, subtly affecting the evolutionary trajectory of the cultures from which they emerged. By exploring the motivations behind their construction and the applications for which they were used, I venture to provide insights into the worldviews and cultural trends that shaped their evolution. This is an attempt to make new connections between seemingly disparate efforts by shedding light on a largely forgotten history, one that is increasingly relevant as dome theaters become a common medium for education, outreach, and experimentation in the early 21st century.

Interest in immersive experiences in museums and heritage sites has increased in recent years in response to challenges faced by the sector and the potential of emerging technologies. Arts and heritage institutions hope immersive experiences will lead to increased visibility and a culture of innovation, new audiences, more meaningful participation, better engagement, and additional revenue. This is reflected in the Industrial Strategy and the Creative Industries Sector Deal. Cultural institutions have been important early testbeds for immersive approaches and have – often in partnership with research institutions and partners – benefited from investment through UKRI, the Arts Councils and National Heritage Lottery Fund. But attempts to find straightforward connections between investment and outcomes have been inconclusive or resisted.

The coronavirus pandemic has impacted societies in different ways. This variation is inherently geographical, with patterns across space and time reflecting underlying societal inequalities. This paper describes a learning intervention designed to afford participants opportunities to experience the diffusion of a (virtual) virus within a community, albeit in a safe way. The intervention was enacted in March 2021 among nine undergraduate teachers-in-training at a teacher-education institute in Singapore. Participants were invited to reflect on the connections between their personal decision-making and its impact on the broader community, after having first undertaken a collaborative task in a virtual environment. The Socially Responsible Behaviour through Embodied Thinking (SORBET) Project draws on the learning sciences in terms of embodied cognition and projective identity, and in this paper, seeks to apply them to geographical understandings of diffusion. Responses from post-activity interviews are reported along three themes, as structured by Cultural-Historical Activity Theory. Through encouraging reflection on authentic experience, the authors hope to catalyse a more grounded appreciation of the need to practise positive social habits in the context of a pandemic and, by extension, contribute to the fight against the virus through the application of geographical thinking at scales local and global.

Recent developments in image-making techniques have resulted in a drastic blurring of the threshold between the world of the image and the real world. Immersive and interactive virtual environments have enabled the production of pictures that elicit in the perceiver a strong feeling of being incorporated in a new and autonomous world. In doing so, they negate themselves as " images-of-something " , as icons: they are veritable " an-icons ". This kind of picture undermines the mainstream representationalist paradigm of Western image theories: " presentification " rather than representation is at stake here. My paper will address this challenging iconoscape, arguing for the necessity of a specific methodological approach—namely, an-iconology.

Die prozessuale Wirkungsweise der Immersion beschränkt sich nicht nur auf technisch-apparative Medien oder computergestützte Mediensysteme, sondern zeigt sich innerhalb zahlreicher Forschungsdiskurse ebenfalls bei analogen oder monomodalen Medien. Die Gradstufen und Ausprägungen von immersiven Prozessen ereignen sich dabei stets über ein bivektorielles Induktionsschema: Entweder wird Immersion maßgeblich über ein mediales Reiz- beziehungsweise Strukturangebot über sensomotorisch fundierte Wahrnehmungsprozesse eingeleitet oder über weitestgehend subjektive, phantasmatisch-imaginäre Annäherungen an ein Medium. Der Immersionsprozess besitzt allerdings nicht nur das Potenzial zur Analyse und Beschreibung spezifischer Rezeptionsprozesse im Verhältnis von Medium, Interface und Rezipient, sondern er lässt sich als eine komplexe Modellannahme zur Beschreibung einer Kulturtheorie medialer Hybride verstehen, die der Medienevolution der letzten Jahrzehnte adäquat Rechnung tragen kann. In Anknüpfung an Ernst Cassirers animal symbolicum und Hans Jonas’ homo pictor formuliert dieser Artikel die These des homo immergens.

Exhibition Review. 'Perfume: a sensory journey through contemporary scent,' curated by Claire Catterall and Lizzie Ostrom (aka Odette Toilette), London, Somerset House, June 21-September 23, 2017.

'Perfume: A Sensory Journey through Contemporary Scent' seeks to release perfume from its bottle and to create a physical space for olfactory reflection. Presenting unconventional fragrances within an interactive space, the exhibition challenges the audience's expectations and preconceptions on what constitutes perfume, and questions the place of smell in artistic practice.

Recent current events have dramatically highlighted the vulnerability of the world's material cultural heritage. The 3-D Digital Preservation of At-Risk Global Cultural Heritage project, led by Thomas Levy at UC San Diego, catalyzes a collaborative research effort by four University of California campuses (San Diego, Berkeley, Los Angeles and Merced) to use cyber-archaeology and computer graphics for cultural heritage to document and safeguard virtually some of the most at-risk heritage objects and places. Faculty and students involved in this project are conducting path-breaking archaeological research - covering more than 10,000 years of culture and architecture - in Cyprus, Greece, Egypt, Ethiopia, Israel, Jordan, Morocco, Turkey, and the United States. This project uses the 3-D archaeological data collected in numerous at-risk heritage places to study, forecast, and model the effects of human conflict, climate change, natural disasters and technological and cultural changes ...

‘Virtual Ethics’, was written at the behest of Jenny Chapman at the BBC, who wanted an introduction to an ethics for immersive technology. Since there is little of such yet, I have started much from scratch. The essay is general, and is written for those who need of tools for ethical deliberation regarding new technology.
Yet, the essay, among other things, also attempts a liberal expansion of the set of objects for moral concern.

I thank Chris Bobonich for reading.

The formal, cinematic language specific to immersive motion pictures is an area of cinema theory that has been neglected up until now. This paper investigates a new language of cinematic montage specific to immersive cinema, somatic montage, while it examines historical precedents in the sciences, arts, and cinema of the twentieth century. We propose somatic montage as a model for developing new poetic structures in time-based works that inhabit a three-dimensional, architectonic space – a space of embodiment, motion, perception, and participation in the reception of a work of art. In this paper, we consider cinema as a four-dimensional artwork conceptually engendered by the principles of hyper-dimensions, the outgrowth of scientific discoveries made at the turn of the twentieth century. The expanded cinema mediums of fulldome cinema, immersive video and film installation, virtual reality, and extended reality, when approached as four-dimensional cinema space, allow for a spatialized, non-linear juxtaposition of the cinematic elements. Somatic montage is presented here as an extended, supra-dimensional notion of what Sergei Eisenstein called the ‘disjunctive method of narration’.

Keywords
Immersive cinema, Somatic montage, 20th-century avant-garde, Modernism, Relativity theory, N-dimensional geometry, Montage, Sergei Eisenstein

Visual displays are a formidable means of conveying information to the human brain. They facilitate the formation of scientific knowledge about the physical world, based on underlying observations of diverse kinds, through representations that are understood by practitioners of the relevant discipline area. Such data visualizations are critical in the geosciences given the need to draw meaning from time-varying, spatial or volumetric data, and given the increasing size of the datasets available for analysis of the natural, physical world.


The research described in this thesis aims to apply a novel set of technical resources to visualization in the geosciences. It draws on the immense potential of the human user for feature detection through connecting scientific data formats to computer graphics technologies. The software applications written in response to this opportunity therefore make strong use of interactivity in the reconnaissance exploration of example datasets. Throughout the research, a commitment to a well-posed visual display is developed, respecting underlying data values through the managed use of color and other graphic variables.


Following a review of the conceptual background, and the landscape of computer graphics technologies, the first original research chapter presents interactive software and workflows to visualize large geoscientific time-series datasets. It uses an animated interface and Human- Computer Interaction (HCI) to utilize the capacity of human expert observers to identify features via enhanced visual analytics. User-generated metadata allows subsets of the data to be tagged for subsequent closer investigation. The tool provides a rapid pre-pass process using fast GPU-based OpenGL graphics and data-handling. It makes use of interoperable data formats, and cloud-based (or local) data storage and computation. In a case study, the software was used to characterize a decade (2000–2009) of data recorded by the Cape Sorell Waverider Buoy, located approximately 10 km off the West coast of Tasmania, Australia. These data serve as a proxy for the understanding of Southern Ocean storminess, which has both local and global implications. Four different types of storm and non-storm events are characterized and compared with conventional analysis, noting the advantages and limitations of data analysis using animation and human interaction.

The second original research chapter presents a suite of newly written computer applications for 2D data, which enable spatially varying data to be displayed and analyzed in a performant graphics environment. Color-mappings using illustrative color spaces (RGB, CIELAB) are compared with the aid of interactive displays of the applied gradient paths through the chosen color spaces. This facilitates the creation of color-maps that accommodate the non-uniformity of human color perception, producing an image where genuine features are seen, taking account of aspects of the data such as parameter uncertainty. For an illustrative case study using a seismic tomography result, interpolation in CIELAB color space is shown to enable the creation of perceptually uniform linear gradients that match the underlying data, along with a simply computable metric for color difference, ΔE. This color space assists the accuracy and reproducibility of visualization results.

The well-posed use of color is further developed in the third original research chapter, for the exploratory interactive visualization of 3D volumes of global, deep Earth data. As an example, we address the challenge of reconnaissance visualization of a combined seismic tomography result, the primary means by which geoscientists infer structure and process in the deep Earth. A novel, interactive graphical application suite is presented that uses an intuitive 2.5D layer compositing approach. This allows the user to adjust the separation between data-slices, control graphics variables such as color mapping, opacity and compositing, and enables exploration and annotation of the architecture of the lithosphere. The methodology could find use in the visualization of multiple datasets representing aspects of the Earth’s deep interior, oceans and atmosphere, and in facilitating researcher interaction with the increasing number of rich datasets from missions to our neighboring planets.


The three original research papers that form the core of this thesis all provide a means of amplifying analytical acuity through animated and/or interactive interfaces that enable both ‘overview’ and ‘detail’ visualization and navigation. Through all three studies, the ‘human in the loop’ aspects of the visualization process are drawn upon, e.g. in the use of perceptual color spaces for optimal display of data, or exploiting visual faculties such as stereopsis and depth perception.


The dataflow software methodology employed is self-documenting, using a visual programming approach that can be replicated in alternative cross-platform software environments such as recent computer game engines. This flexible strategy assists the development of novel graphical user interfaces and interaction modalities for collaborative immersive screen technologies such as domes and future XR applications.


In summary the research described herein bridges the gap between scientific data formats and the immense resources of the computer graphics and gaming industries. It exploits productive modes of HCI engagement with the data display to facilitate the search for new knowledge in the geosciences. It is anticipated that the newly written software applications will lead to wider usage of informed color-mapping in the geosciences and an awareness of the utility of emergent visualization platforms for enhancing scientific research. It is hoped that “visual literacy” and “visual numeracy” will substantially improve as a consequence of this work, and similar initiatives, as inference tasks are more routinely carried out using well-posed data visualization in the geosciences.

This paper is part of an ongoing transdisciplinary research into immersion. In specific, it focuses on Spatial Storytelling to examine the narrative technique in conjunction with Spatial Presence, a commonly accepted subtype of Presence. How our real-life occupation is a constant narrative making exercise and how storytelling is ingrained in our movement in space. It is argued here that immersion and presence models stand to benefit from spatial theory, particularly, the body of work surrounding spatial practices and narratives. Further, that the incorporation of spatial theory adds to the necessary versatility required in approaching immersion, which has been thus far dominated by positivist empiricism. Contributions of a theorized space are also found missing from interactive storytelling and videogames where subject/object interactivity is seen as mere actions performed inside a given space whereas the paper argues that space is learnt through such involvement.

The spatial orientation skill allows us to determine our location in relation to the environment. It can be developed through specific training, and is a competence to be acquired in STEM university degrees related to geospatial information. In addition to map reading, an activity that provides the spatial orientation skill is wayfinding. While wayfinding the information obtained from successive views of the environment provides spatial orientation. This research presents an immersive orientation experiment, in which an urban environment is displayed through a Smartphone installed in VR 3D glasses. The motion direction is controlled with a joystick. In the experiment 32-second year engineering students from La Laguna University participated, and the average gain in spatial orientation skill was of 12.81º, measured with the Perspective Taking Spatial Orientation Test. No gender differences detected. This gain is less than that obtained in previous experiments with GISc, Geoportals and Augmented Reality resources.

Today, virtual reality and immersive environments are lines of research which can be applied to numerous scientific and educational domains. Immersive digital media needs new approaches regarding its interactive and immersive features, which means the design of new narratives and relationships with users. Additionally, ICT (information and communication theory) evolves through more immersive and interactive scenarios, it being necessary to design and conceive new forms of representing information and improving users' interaction with immersive environments. Virtual reality and technologies associated with the virtuality continuum, such as immersive and digital environments, are emerging media. As a medium, this approach may help to build and represent ideas and concepts, as well as developing new languages. This review analyses the cutting-edge expressive, interactive and representative potential of immersive digital technologies. It also considers future possibilities regarding the evolution of these immersive technologies, such as virtual reality, in coming years, in order to apply them to diverse scientific, artistic or informational and educational domains. We conclude that virtual reality is an ensemble of technological innovations, but also a concept, and propose models to link it with the latest in other domains such as UX (user experience), interaction design. This concept can help researchers and developers to design new experiences and conceive new expressive models that can be applied to a wide range of scientific lines of research and educational dynamics.

There has been a considerable increase in Augmented Reality (AR) adoption in informal learning environments, such as: museums, art galleries, etc. These institutions can be used to improve the visitors’ engagement as well as to enhance the immersive visitor experience. The present study investigates how AR promotes children’s engagement in museums and to what extent this engagement relates to the immersive visitor experience. Thus, the current study focuses on the Fabulous Frog AR app which is intended to be used in the Manchester Museum. This app introduced at the European City of Science (ECOS) event on the 27th July 2016. Internal and external data collection was conducted using an observational study of eleven children’s interactions with the app at the event, four email interviews with the parents of the children as well as two email interviews with the designers of the application. Findings show that AR is capable of enhancing the children’s emotional and behavioural engagement and the immersive visitor experience with technical and pedagogical interactivity, the feedback-based activity, and heightening the sense of excitement, happiness, immersion and so on in the museum environments. On the other hand, a lengthy webpage provided by AR may have negative impact on this engagement.

The Palenque interactive multimedia digital video interactive
prototype is based on themes, locations, and characters
from The Second Voyage ofthe Mimi television show, which
is being produced at Bank Street College. In the TV show, a
cast of scientists and children explore the Yucatan’s ancient
Maya ruins and are introduced to the science of archeology.
The Palenque prototype incorporates this theme to the extent
that the user’s experience is based on a virtual travel exploration
of an ancient Maya site, Palenque, and on the perusal
of a multimedia Palenque Museum database. One of our
goals was to create a visually interesting database environment
in which information in many formats could be browsed
through spatially and thematically by children. In addition,
we experimented with icon and window-based interface
conventions that would make navigation around the video
environment motivating and comprehensible for young
users.

Spatialisation accuracies of commercially available plugins, Wave Arts Panorama and Longcat H3D, were tested in listening tests using 7 expert subjects and experimental methods. Binaurally rendered trains of pink noise bursts were played over headphones and subjects were asked to localize 72 sound source locations. The spatialisation accuracy of H3D plugin was significantly better than of Panorama in the azimuthal plane. However the spatialisation accuracy in elevation was significantly indifferent for both plugins where they have accurately spatialised only 2/3 of the rendered positions. The study was concluded that for the critical simulation of 3D audio environments, the tested plugins are not suitable. The assumptions leading to the conclusion were also stated as well as the suggestions for future works.

Based on a nuanced understanding of immersion and sense of presence (SoP) as two key aesthetic effects that the application of virtual reality (VR) to cinema is believed to innovate, this paper develops the concept of synthetic vision as fundamental to understanding the visual experience of VR media, particularly VR documentaries. The concept contends that viewers' experience in VR is based on two visions that seemingly contradict each other: first, a disembodied vision that transports them to a simulated world, and second, an embodied vision guaranteed by the freedom to control kinesthetic movement and direction of gaze. This serves to advance the idea that immersion and SoP are not unified but rather multifaceted concepts premised on a nuanced understanding of the varying relationships between the technological system of VR, its media content, and its user. For the concept of synthetic vision points to the paradoxical coexistence of viewers' presence in the virtual world and their structural absence from the world that lays the groundwork for their immersive experience. By classifying three generic categories of contemporary VR documentaries (humanitarian and journalism documentaries, documentaries about nature, travel, and museum visits, and documentaries based on the reenactment of conscious or mnemonic realities), and by examining the aesthetic and ethical underpinnings VR brings to each of them, I argue that it hinges upon what kind of cinematic conventions and genres are remediated to determine the effective synthesis of the two visions. The varying effects of synthetic vision in the three subgenres of VR documentary stress that immersion and SoP have different political and ethical consequences of media witnessing. In the conclusion, I recapitulate multiple implications that the concept

The destruction of images is a process that often produces a new imaginary, a visual spectacle in itself. Even after the original image has been obliterated, its absence can create its own powerful aesthetic that survives centuries. The article focuses on two historical case studies: the iconoclasm in Zurich in the 1520s and the National Socialist attack on so-called degenerate art. Through these, it aims to show how destruction can yield a total work of art through a carefully planned, even scripted, process that is far removed from the «lunatic running around with a sledgehammer» stereotype. It argues that many attacks on images are characterised by transformation, mysticism and performativity, during which a careful oscillation between absence and presence plays an important role. Ultimately, this contribution strives to create a new understanding of destructions of images through the frame of the Gesamtkunstwerk.

KEYWORDS Destruction of Art; Iconoclasm; Degenerate Art; National Socialism; Reformation; Zwingli; Spectacle; Audience Participation

L'immersività applicata ai prodotti culturali sta suscitando grande interesse tanto nel pubblico generalista quanto negli ambienti specialistici: i tradizionali campi del cinema e dell'arte si trovano ad affrontare la concorrenza di un'ampia galassia di applicazioni (Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality, Extended Reality, Enhanced Reality, Hybrid Reality, 3D Graphics, 360° Photo/Video, Real Time Experience, Immersive Experience…) che aprono nuovi scenari di spettacolarizzazione non privi di importanti ricadute economiche. Come orientarsi in questo variegato panorama? Finora l'attenzione è stata puntata soprattutto sulla Virtual Reality, ma recentemente si sta facendo largo il settore delle Immersive Art Experience, che propone un tipo di esperienza digitale completamente diversa. Proveremo ad individuare un criterio molto semplice, ma anche molto efficace, per valutare i due campi: la distinzione fra immersività "pesante" e immersività "leggera".

Zoo architects have the extraordinary task to design buildings for at least two kinds of users: They have to build a functional environment for captive, wild animals, which usually spend their whole life time in their enclosure. Additionally, architects have to meet the needs of the visitors, who expect entertainment, relaxation and education. Since the 1950s zoos have taken on the mission of making their audiences aware of conservational issues. The ideological shift towards conservational goals as well as public concerns about living conditions of captive wild animals altered the concepts of zoo design. Zoos had to integrate popular imaginations about naturalness and scientific research on ecological issues, an ambivalent mixture between aesthetics of science and naturalistic impression.

As a historical comparison of zoo architecture shows, the public’s as well as the stakeholders’ interpretation and representation of ’natural conditions’ change almost every decade within the 20th century. The methods of transferring the wilderness into the sheltered and confined space of the zoo are vital to understand the differing concepts of zoo landscapes.

Zoos have to deal with the competition with theme parks and they have a deep tradition as intellectual middle-class institutions of the 19th century as well. These commercial and cultural functions are dominant and contrast the experimental potential of zoological parks. Nevertheless, I argue, that at least some planning concepts and some zoo buildings tend to establish new perspectives onto building practices. My doctoral dissertation examines the multifaceted, partly contradictory concepts and practices of zoo design in the 20th century.

The dark ride is a format of immersive media that originated in the amusement parks of the USA in the early 20 th century. Whilst their numbers have decreased, classic rides from the 1930s to the 70s, such as the Ghost Train and Haunted House experiences have been referenced is films, games and novels of the digital era. Although the format is well known, it is not well defined. There are no dedicated publications on the topic and its links to other media discourses are sparsely documented. Today, entertainment media is utilising technology extensively to create immersive experiences for audiences, transporting them into themed journeys and environments. This paper establishes the lineage of the dark ride format as an early example of this same immersive media. Field research shows the consistent use of particular technical effects over 90 years of production that are common in contemporary examples of the format. The findings clearly define the dark ride format and align it with immersive media today, making a case for greater examination of its history to inform current practice.

In this dissertation, I explore a phenomenon I call virtual touch, in which embodied sensations of touch are felt through non-tactile senses. In the digital age, online interactivity has expanded the ways in which individuals experience connection, intimacy, and touch. Digital media, which have traditionally been thought of as disembodied, nevertheless have the ability to elicit intense feelings of touch. Through analysis of digital and virtual installation art, I examine the ways that non-tactile touch remains rooted in the embodied experience. The works I include in this study create a feeling of virtual touch through a co-functioning of the senses, and through what Brian Massumi terms “the superiority of the analog,” in which all experience is inherently rooted in the body.

Grounded in Merleau-Ponty’s theory of the embodied subject, I focus on three broad categories of installation art, each of which creates an affective response of virtual touch through senses of sight and proprioception: telematic performance using video-conferencing technology, digitally reactive animations, and immersive sculptures of light designed to decenter the perceptual and visual senses. Along with works by artists Paul Sermon, Adrien M & Claire B, teamLab, and James Turrell, I include analyses of two research performances I created, Being Present (2016) and (dis)embodied in space (2019), both of which entangled live and mediatized bodies through telematic video technology. Each of the artworks that I include place an emphasis on the embodied experience, engaging bodies in interactions of virtual touch with other bodies, with digitally reactive artworks, and with light and space. Throughout this dissertation, I argue for a rethinking of concepts of touch, intimacy, and connection in the digital age.

All framing devices have the effect of sharply demarcating the boundaries of the representational space by ensuring both the island-like structure of pictures and the beholder’s awareness of being in front of ‘nothing but images.’ It is precisely this separateness, and, with it, the equation of representation with depiction, that is being more and more challenged by hyperrealistic, immersive, and interactive virtual environments that blur the threshold between image and reality, thus eliciting in the experiencer a strong feeling of being incorporated into quasi-real worlds. Drawing on phenomenology, media philosophy, visual culture studies and techno-aesthetics, this book introduces (and critically examines) the notion of 'unframing' as a key to understanding this radically new iconoscape.

A waterfront is the interface between land and a flowing surface water body. It is also referred to as a riparian reserve. Roles of riparian areas vary from ecological, aesthetic, and economical roles to other general uses. The Lake Naivasha riparian has some of the richest ecosystems characterized by extensive acacia trees, an amazing spectacle of wildlife, and is set in one of the most beautiful scenery in the Great Rift Valley. The Lake’s fresh water supports a thriving floriculture industry, the third foreign exchange earner for the country, the geothermal power plants at Olkaria and a booming tourism industry. Because of the economic benefits derived from these activities, the area is teeming with human population.

Traditionally, the area’s economy was dependent on fisheries, boat making and agriculture. Today, these economic sectors have been overshadowed by the development of the floriculture, tourism and energy industries. Population growth spurred by these industries has resulted in rapid urbanization around the lake threatening its future. As a result riparian land perceived as underutilized has been prone to spontaneous encroachment and illegal occupation especially by the urban poor. Unplanned settlements have sprout around Lake Naivasha, each housing tens of thousands of people working directly in the floriculture industry and resultant service industries.

The largest centres of aggregation of settlements are: Kihoto, Karagita, Kwa Muhia, Kamere and Kasarani. Collectively their population could amount to 250,000 inhabitants, all living in close proximity to the lake. These communities are mostly composed of young people who immigrate looking for jobs and who are ready to move elsewhere as opportunities arise. As a consequence, the structure of the built-up area comprises mostly compounds with large numbers of small rooms rather than family estates and homes. All residents tend to settle in close proximity to the Moi South Lake road for easy accessibility to utilities and services.