Interactive fiction in cinematic virtual reality: an interactive and immersive narrative (text)

In its struggle to gain mass adoption, Virtual Reality (VR) industry and independent creators are exploring various types of content that may attract audiences. This paper presents a potential feature content for VR: Interactive Fiction in cinematic Virtual reality (IFcVR), a media and narrative hybrid resulting from the encounter between Interactive Fiction (IF), hypertextual fiction stories or hyperfiction, and cinematic Virtual Reality (cVR), that is the use of 360° videos. This hybridization of art and media creates immersive and interactive fiction films, in which the ‘interactor’ is placed within the scenic space and has the agency to change the course of the story. In the light of a new narrative and media product, the question of whether this can be considered a narrative text or not arises. This paper sheds some light on IFcVR and its narrative features according to Seymour Chatman’s structuralist model of narrative text, as well as its digital and interactive nature according to current research on the field of interactive narratives. The aim is to highlight the potential of IFcVR to become an entertainment content for the VR public

Remediating the data : a study on the interactive dimensions in new media

Cataloged from PDF version of article.This thesis analyses the role of interface in altering perception and customizing interaction in new media. It comprehends the correlation of theory and practice while probing into the current debate by means of examples and case studies. The general structure of this research is based on the objectives of interactivity in cultural and social levels. In each level, interactivity is analyzed through function, operation oriented and design-wise aspects of new media. This study focuses on the interactive dimensions in new media and their affects on the user’s perception and engagement within a digitally framed work.Şenova, FundaM.S

Shift-life interactive art: mixed-reality artificial ecosystem simulation

This article presents a detailed design, development and implementation of a Mixed Reality Art-Science collaboration project which was exhibited during Darwin’s bicentenary exhibition at Shrewsbury, England. As an artist-led project the concerns of the artist were paramount, and this article presents Shift-Life as part of an on-going exploration into the parallels between the non-linear human thinking process and computation using semantic association to link items into ideas, and ideas into holistic concepts. Our art explores perceptions and states of mind as we move our attention between the simulated world of the computer and the real-world we inhabit, which means that any viewer engagement is participatory rather than passive. From a Mixed Reality point of view, the lead author intends to explore the convergence of the physical and virtual, therefore the formalization of the Mixed Reality system, focusing on the integration of artificial life, ecology, physical sensors and participant interaction through an interface of physical props. It is common for digital media artists to allow viewers to activate a work either through a computer screen via direct keyboard or mouse manipulation, or through immersive means to activate their work, for “Shift-Life” the artist was concerned with a direct “relational” approach where viewers would intuitively engage with the installation’s everyday objects, and with each other, to fully experience the piece. The Mixed Reality system is mediated via physical environmental sensors, which affect the virtual environment and autonomous agents, which in turn reacts and is expressed as virtual pixels projected onto a physical surface. The tangible hands-on interface proved to be instinctive, attractive and informative on many levels, delivering a good example of collaboration between the Arts and Science

Safe and Sound: Proceedings of the 27th Annual International Conference on Auditory Display

Complete proceedings of the 27th International Conference on Auditory Display (ICAD2022), June 24-27. Online virtual conference

Virtual Reality Aesthetics and Boundaries in New Media Art Practices

This dissertation maps out the epistemological and political coordinates of contemporary Virtual Reality (VR) aesthetics through a hybrid inquiry that combines conventional academic research practices with artistic experiments. Since its inception, both conceptually and technologically, VR has emerged as a model for a techno-utopic paradigm that seeks to construct an autonomous image not only from the mediation of artist, but also from the material, spatial, and by extension social and political determinations of reality. With the differences in the formal techniques and strategies of each instance of the media constellation that this teleological paradigm conglomerates such as cinema, early proto-cinematic devices, stereoscopic 3D, and cybernetics, the objective is always the same: to develop an immediate and autonomous interface shorn of limitations configured according to the subjective and bodily conditions of the viewer. In both practice and theory this dissertation attempts to problematize the question of autonomy and by extension heteronomy, which have been distributed in a binary opposition in 20th century artistic practices. I contend that aesthetic practices emerge within the dynamic and interlocked relation between heteronomy and autonomy. Neither artistic practices nor image technologies are autonomous from the political and historical context in which they became possible both technologically and conceptually. Moreover, I argue that artistic practices become critical insofar that the question of autonomy appears sensibly as a problem. Through a threefold inquiry on the question of autonomy and heteronomy, this dissertation has aimed to problematize the very context that made it possible. First, I problematized the autonomy of art purported to be the grounding gesture of the critical nature of research-creation; second, the autonomy purported to be inherent to VR as an immersive and interactive image technology was called into question; and third, as the extension of the second, I problematized the autonomy of the viewer and virtual images in the VR experience that constitutes the artistic experiment component of the dissertation

Mixed Reality Images: Trilogy of Synthetic Realities III

The interplay of physical reality and digital media technologies is getting enhanced by new interfaces. The age of hyper-reality turns into the age of hyper-aesthetics and immersive image technologies - like mixed reality - enable a completely novel form of interaction and user relation with the virtual image structures, the different screen technologies, and embedded physical artefacts for interaction. "Mixed Reality Images" contributes to the wide range of the hyper-aesthetic image discourse to connect the concept of mixed reality images with the approaches in modern media theory, philosophy, perceptual theory, aesthetics, computer graphics and art theory as well as the complex range of image science. This volume monitors and discusses the relation of images and technological evolution in the context of mixed reality within the perspective of an autonomous image science

The Cinematic Aesthetics of Digital Virtualism

This dissertation explores the cinematic ontology of digital virtualism in the context of the current trend to digitalisation. I define digital virtualism as the aesthetics of assemblage and configuration in the age of digital images. This definition implies that digital technology strengthens the complex tension between physical reality and imaginary illusion. Based on computer simulation and synthesis, the digital image intensifies the contradiction between cinematic materiality and immateriality. Digital virtualism is the aesthetics of historical hybridity and aesthetic complexity between the actual and the virtual, the indexical and the symbolic, the material and the immaterial, the real and the imaginary. In this context, this thesis examines the aesthetical relationship of filmic virtuality and the digital image. In particular, I assert that the digital image is the new form and expansion of filmic virtuality. While film is always the art of the virtual, that is, the aesthetic imbrication of actual indexicality and imaginary illusion, the digital image intensifies the contradiction of filmic virtuality between reality and illusion. On one hand, computer simulation reinforces the indexicality of film by the principle of perceptual realism. On the other hand, it attenuates the causality between the object and the image by digital manipulation. I argue that digital technology simultaneously intensifies both filmic reality and the manipulation of the imaginary. Thus, the digital image expands the expressive force and aesthetic potential of cinema. After examining the cinematic aesthetics of realism, modernism, postmodernism, and digital aesthetics after postmodernism, this dissertation investigates the aesthetical implications of Deleuzian virtuality in the age of the digital image. Deleuze presents the cinematic aesthetics of virtual conjunction in the monism of simulacra, which implies the indiscernible and inextricable imbrication of the actual and the virtual, original and copy, reality and image, and cinematic movement and time. Following the discussion of the aesthetical ontology of Deleuzian virtuality, this dissertation theorises the assemblage aesthetics of digital virtualism. Consequently, this dissertation proposes the subjective and practical task of digital ethics. Digital technology intensifies the spectacular attraction of images and the interactive participation of spectators in the cinematic process. In contrast, the digital image reveals technological fetishism and aesthetic commercialisation. Based on the ontological contradiction of the digital image, this dissertation articulates the configurative aesthetics and the subjective ethics of digital virtualism

The Cinematic Aesthetics of Digital Virtualism

This dissertation explores the cinematic ontology of digital virtualism in the context of the current trend to digitalisation. I define digital virtualism as the aesthetics of assemblage and configuration in the age of digital images. This definition implies that digital technology strengthens the complex tension between physical reality and imaginary illusion. Based on computer simulation and synthesis, the digital image intensifies the contradiction between cinematic materiality and immateriality. Digital virtualism is the aesthetics of historical hybridity and aesthetic complexity between the actual and the virtual, the indexical and the symbolic, the material and the immaterial, the real and the imaginary. In this context, this thesis examines the aesthetical relationship of filmic virtuality and the digital image. In particular, I assert that the digital image is the new form and expansion of filmic virtuality. While film is always the art of the virtual, that is, the aesthetic imbrication of actual indexicality and imaginary illusion, the digital image intensifies the contradiction of filmic virtuality between reality and illusion. On one hand, computer simulation reinforces the indexicality of film by the principle of perceptual realism. On the other hand, it attenuates the causality between the object and the image by digital manipulation. I argue that digital technology simultaneously intensifies both filmic reality and the manipulation of the imaginary. Thus, the digital image expands the expressive force and aesthetic potential of cinema. After examining the cinematic aesthetics of realism, modernism, postmodernism, and digital aesthetics after postmodernism, this dissertation investigates the aesthetical implications of Deleuzian virtuality in the age of the digital image. Deleuze presents the cinematic aesthetics of virtual conjunction in the monism of simulacra, which implies the indiscernible and inextricable imbrication of the actual and the virtual, original and copy, reality and image, and cinematic movement and time. Following the discussion of the aesthetical ontology of Deleuzian virtuality, this dissertation theorises the assemblage aesthetics of digital virtualism. Consequently, this dissertation proposes the subjective and practical task of digital ethics. Digital technology intensifies the spectacular attraction of images and the interactive participation of spectators in the cinematic process. In contrast, the digital image reveals technological fetishism and aesthetic commercialisation. Based on the ontological contradiction of the digital image, this dissertation articulates the configurative aesthetics and the subjective ethics of digital virtualism

Physical to Virtual: A Model for Future Virtual Classroom Environments

Virtual reality is a technology that has seen unprecedented growth since the turn of the century with increasing applications within business, entertainment, and educational applications. As virtual reality technologies continue to develops and markets expand, the world may see an increased demand for virtual classrooms: virtual environments (VEs) that students may access through immersive virtual reality technologies to receive guided instruction, conduct simulations, or perform tasks typical in a classroom setting. While many studies document how virtual reality is beneficial to educational processes, there is little discussion on how virtual environments should be architecturally designed. Thus one may hypothesize that physical design strategies translated to virtual environments may have similar results. This thesis investigates virtual environments for education by creating several virtual classrooms embedded within a selective digital twin of the University of Massachusetts Amherst campus. The design of the virtual classrooms was influenced by current architectural trends in classroom design while capturing unique abilities present within a virtual context. A physical teaching module was also designed to create a platform for educators within the university to deliver instruction within the virtual campus