Untitled

Symposium:

• ISEA2011: 17th International Symposium on Electronic Art

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

• Untitled

• Elif Ayiter

Venue(s):

• Sabanci Center, Istanbul, Turkey

• Chair Per­son: Elif Ayiter

  Pre­sen­ters: Selim Balcisoy, Murat Ger­men, Yacov Sharir, Diane Gro­mala & Mar­garet Dolin­sky

  We have come to rec­og­nize the vast po­ten­tial of Vir­tual Re­al­ity en­vi­ron­ments as pow­er­ful agents of change, both on a per­sonal as well as on a so­cially in­ter­ac­tive level. Thus, this panel will dis­cuss the im­ple­men­ta­tion of Vir­tu­al­ity Re­al­ity tech­nolo­gies in the fields of heal­ing and of per­sonal growth, learn­ing, as well as an all im­por­tant re-cap­tur­ing of po­ten­tially lost adult play­ful­ness through three di­men­sional vir­tual pres­ence and im­mer­sion.
  In this panel we pro­pose to look at Vir­tual Re­alites in their on­line as well as stand­alone man­i­fes­ta­tions with a spe­cial con­sid­er­a­tion for its ca­pa­bil­i­ties in pro­duc­ing emo­tional, per­cep­tual, be­hav­ioral changes in their users. That these changes ex­tend be­yond the ac­tual im­mer­sion and con­tinue into the every­day ex­is­tence of par­tic­i­pa­tors has been pre­vi­ously es­tab­lished by Yee and Bailen­son (2007). Be­yond their con­sid­er­able per­sua­sive ca­pa­bilites as we know them today, look­ing into the fu­ture, Biocca (1997) dis­cusses the pos­si­bil­ity of de­vel­op­ing a medium that al­lows greater ac­cess to the in­tel­li­gence, in­ten­tions and sen­sory im­pres­sions of an­other per­son through the usage of Vir­tual Re­al­ity en­vi­ron­ments and the em­bod­ied agent therin, a state which he calles Hy­per­p­res­ence: Propos­ing sen­sor based tech­nolo­gies, used in con­junc­tion with im­mer­sive three di­men­sional Vir­tual Re­al­ity Biocca points at the pos­si­bil­ity of a novel com­mu­ni­ca­tion codes which may en­hance/am­plify and even ex­tend be­yond spo­ken lan­guage and non-ver­bal codes such as fa­cial ex­pres­sion, pos­ture, touch, and mo­tion, that  “these can aug­ment the in­ten­tional and un­in­ten­tional cues used in in­ter­per­sonal com­mu­ni­ca­tion to as­sess the emo­tional states and in­ten­tions of oth­ers” (Biocca, 1997).
  In light of and an aware­ness of such of­fer­ings, both cur­rent and fu­ture, we have come to rec­og­nize the vast po­ten­tial of Vir­tual Re­al­ity en­vi­ron­ments as pow­er­ful agents of change, both on a per­sonal as well as on a so­cially in­ter­ac­tive level. What will thus be under scrutiny is how Vir­tual Re­al­ity based art­work can be ac­tu­al­ized within such a process: The im­plemeta­tion of Vir­tu­al­ity Re­al­ity tech­nolo­gies in the fields of heal­ing and of per­sonal growth, learn­ing, as well as an all im­por­tant re-cap­tur­ing of po­ten­tially lost adult play­ful­ness through three di­men­sional vir­tual pres­ence and im­mer­sion will be some of the sub­jects under dis­cus­sion.

Category:

• Panel