
Public Lecture Series "Immersive Arts" - Immersion and Extended Realities
lecture recording https://blog.zhdk.ch/immersivearts/lecture-spg222/#2
Challenging the Individual - Perceptual con/fusions in Virtual Reality - Abstract
Immersion is a variously shaped and fragile state of mind that is easily lost due to sensual input. Sometimes, irritating triggers are incorporated into the design of the user experience of a VR-world. Sometimes they originate (un)intendedly in the real world and remind us of our divided corporal condition.
In this lecture, I commented on a selection of alienating situations that I experienced in recent VR pieces. The transformative impetus of VR on our self-concept is mind-opening and encourages speculation on the ontology of the perceptive and/or ludic self and the supposedly formative influences of media on our cognitive or even behavioral capacities. I traced these experiences back to a model of perception derived from the field of cognitive psychology and process philosophy. Once having established a preliminary inventory of the complex perceptual situation in VR, I switched to practical considerations concerning VR conceptualization and writing: How can spatial and interactive experiences be translated into a linear reading setup? I shared aesthetic and formal solutions for scriptwriting and storyboarding in VR.