About Vir­tu­al­ity and Cor­po­re­al­ity

Symposium:


Session Title:

  • An Alembic of Transformation: Virtual Reality as Agent of Change

Presentation Title:

  • About Vir­tu­al­ity and Cor­po­re­al­ity

Presenter(s):



Venue(s):



Abstract:

  • Panel: An Alembic of Transformation: Virtual Reality as Agent of Change

    Com­put­er­ized/Vir­tual re­al­ity (VR) tech­nolo­gies allow us to ma­nip­u­late, ex­tend, dis­tort and de­form in­for­ma­tion as well as ex­pe­ri­ence of the outer and inner body/world. They are ve­hi­cles that en­able us to ex­tend and color work in many dif­fer­ent ways, some of which are not pos­si­ble in the phys­i­cal realm and/or by any tra­di­tional means. They offer a way to aug­ment and ex­pand the magic of per­for­mance, thus in­tro­duc­ing new pos­si­bil­i­ties cre­atively, ex­pe­ri­en­tially, spa­tially, vi­su­ally, son­i­cally, and cog­ni­tively.

    VR tech­nolo­gies tend to blur dis­ci­pli­nary bound­aries by chang­ing the na­ture of what and how art­works are cre­ated, re­al­ized, and per­formed. Be­cause one must cre­ate a com­put­er­ized ‘world,’ open to user in­ter­ven­tion and ex­pe­ri­ence, the work ne­ces­si­tates a non-lin­ear, open-ended, al­most frag­mented like com­po­si­tions.

    The process of cre­at­ing a work in VR led my col­lab­o­ra­tor Diane Gro­mala and my­self to far more ques­tions, and opened a great deal of artis­tic pos­si­bil­i­ties. For in­stance in such an in­ter­ac­tive en­vi­ron­ment that is con­tin­gent upon the in­ter­ac­tion and pref­er­ences of oth­ers, how is the no­tions of cre­ator and au­di­ence blur? Is the very na­ture of art, de­sign and dance al­tered by these new pos­si­bil­i­ties? Just where does the per­for­mance occur — within VR it­self, in dis­trib­uted sites, in cy­ber­space? Is some of the par­tic­i­pants rel­e­gated to being pas­sive au­di­ence mem­bers and oth­ers took on the chal­lenge of be­com­ing ‘co-cre­ators’? How does one de­ter­mine who gets rep­re­sented in the VR en­vi­ron­ment? How can this tech­nol­ogy be ac­ces­si­ble to larger au­di­ences ca­pa­ble of in­ter­act­ing di­rectly with the sim­u­la­tion? When do the mul­ti­ple cause-and-ef­fects of user par­tic­i­pa­tion be­come mere chaos?


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