XR Body Illusion for Managing Pain in Fibromyalgia: Examining Optimal Duration

Background: Fibromyalgia is a chronic condition characterised by widespread pain, as well as sleep disturbances, fatigue, and memory and concentration difficulties. Research suggests that an alteration in how the brain represents multisensory inputs from the body may cause or maintain chronic pain conditions, including fibromyalgia. Extended reality (XR) and virtual reality setups generating multisensory conflicts have been shown to alleviate pain, however, the optimal duration for such interventions remains unexplored. Here, we aimed to determine an optimal duration for the cardio-visual full body illusion (FBI) in fibromyalgia, considering both tolerability and changes in pain. Methods: Participants wore headsets to view a video of their own body, filmed from behind, and their body flashed in synchrony with their heartbeat. We used an established dose-finding protocol to determine the ideal duration (balancing benefit and tolerability). Seven cohorts of participants (N = 20) were exposed to different durations of the FBI, with adjustments to duration made according to predefined criteria. Measures included a numeric rating scale for pain intensity, pressure pain thresholds, and scales measuring fibromyalgia symptom severity and impact. Results: We found a quadratic relationship between session duration and changes in self-reported pain-intensity, with 8–16-minute durations yielding the most significant improvements. Notably, in the 12-minute cohorts pain relief was sustained at 24-hour follow-up, and this is the recommended duration for future research. Conclusions: These findings represent a key step towards developing an effective non-pharmacological intervention for fibromyalgia. Future dose-optimisation research should explore the optimum number of sessions and spacing between sessions. Keywords: Dose finding, virtual reality, fibromyalgia, full body illusion, cardio-visual, pain managemen

The Research Studio Episode 5 Christian Petersen

The place where we talk to current doctoral students involved in practice-based, practice-led, or practice-informed research in the arts. We discuss their projects, methodologies, and the place of practice within an academic framework. Interview with Christian Petersen on what it means to take visual communication out of the studio, including case studies on the explorations of Joan Didion in El Salvador and photographer Paul Hymann in Morocco

The Research Studio Episode 6 Adriana Arroyo

The San Juan River that forms a border between Nicaragua and Costa Rica is the subject of Adriana Arroyo’s PhD research at Goldsmiths (University of London). We discuss the challenges of bringing indigenous and academic knowledges together, collaboration, the role of art practice, and what you can learn from a landscape

Lost Communications: Underwater - Spatial Audio and Building Underwater World in 3D

Lost Communications: Underwater by An-Ting & Ian Gallagher Film by Joe Mannion Creative Producer: Laura Ducceschi Advisor: Kirk Woolford Supported by Immersive Arts, Norwich University of Arts, Sound U

The Research Studio Episode 4 Kimberly Shen

The place where we talk to current doctoral students involved in practice-based, practice-led, or practice-informed research in the arts. We discuss their projects, methodologies, and the place of practice within an academic framework. An interview with the Singaporean curator Kimberly Shen, currently in her second year of part-time studies at Chelsea College of Art (UAL). We discuss the art scene in Singapore including previous feminist curatorial projects, the residency programme at dblspce, and her ambition to create a platform to consolidate and promote feminist practices in the region as part of her PhD thesis

A Conversation with Berna

Atop a desk sits a fax machine, a technology that you haven’t used in years or, perhaps, your only memory of it is from having seen it in old TV shows. Curious, you approach the object. As you walk closer, the phone rings, as if anticipating you. You grab the phone and hear a matter-of-fact voice introducing itself as Berna, inviting you to press one to begin. A Conversation with Berna (Vallverdu, 2024) is an interactive piece that speaks to the banality of the present from the banality of the past, using obsolete technology to reflect on our current digital landscape. It reminds us that familiar technology can vanish rapidly, and that data, often perceived as intangible, has a physical footprint (Mageswari, Manoharan and Poomalai, 2022). The piece emphasizes a phenomenological approach, urging the audience to physically experience data. While VR has been used to explore concepts like big data (Raghunathan, 2015), Berna provides a sensory experience where data is rendered in touchable paper form, engaging our sense of smell, weight, and tactility. In an era dominated by AI, Berna poses a question: should creative technology focus solely on advanced AI and VR, or should it address practical, everyday issues

Green Walking: Artful Technologies for Natural Connection

The Green Walks project, funded by the ESRC and NAM, aimed to encourage people to engage with green spaces for improved mental health. Initially, it focused on developing a tool to help people find green spaces within walking distance. However, through the development of a Green View Index in Cambridge, UK, the project discovered that the main barrier wasn’t distance, but rather a lack of awareness of the green spaces that already existed. The project has since shifted its focus to help people recognize the "green" that surrounds them, even in urban environments, through photographic practices, artful interaction and community engagement

Dom Sylvester Houédard: Exhibiting Spiritual ‘architypestractures’ and cosmic dust

This chapter explores the work of Dom Sylvester Houédard (dsh) (1924-1992), a Benedictine monk, artist and poet from Prinknash Abbey, best known for the typestracts and concrete poems he made on his Olivetti Lettera 22 typewriter in the 1960s and 1970s. This essay engages with the exhibition Dom Sylvester Houédard: tantric poetries, which the author curated for the Lisson London Gallery in the spring 2020 and that foreground Houédard’s knowledge and practice of Tantric Buddhist and Hindu spiritual methods. Houédard engaged with the Tantric method practices of mantra, mudra, yantra and mandala to produce a body of work that can be seen as pivotal in the emerging narrative of a transhistorical avant-garde and its engagement with Tantric Hindu and Buddhist practice. The chapter proposes the interdependent relationship between pattern and chaos through a discussion of the presentation of Houédard’s work in this exhibition and the interplay between two separate physical spaces: the geometric patterns of his spiritual architypestractures in one room and the chance, even chaotic representation of the impermanent flux of life in the other room, environmentpoem