Presence, Place and the Virtual Spectacle (original) (raw)

"Being (t)here": A Case for the Presence of Place in Desktop Virtual Worlds

This paper draws on existing phenomenological discourse of place to examine presence during the experience of virtual worlds. By analysing the occupied and experienced places during the inworld experience – the physical and virtual surroundings, for example – this paper aims to understand how the user feels a sense of presence or a sense of being in a virtual place. I apply rigid phenomenological analysis, which privileges an experiential perspective, to data collected over the course of two and half years of participant observation in Second Life. The complex relation between self and place, enacted by and through the phenomenal body, results in emplacement (being-in-place). Places and bodies engage with each other in a dynamic manner: a body is not simply located in places but places also perdure within bodies. The activation of such places within a user’s body during the inworld session plays a critical role in the creation of presence.

Place, Sense of Place, and Presence

Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 2006

Re-creating real places -as distinct from virtual spaces or environments -using virtual reality technology raises a series of significant challenges. Fortunately there is a large body of existing research into the experience of place which might reasonably contribute to our understanding of the task. This paper reviews key aspects of the 'place' literature, relates them to the concept of presence, and then illustrates their application in the context of virtual reality. We conclude that some modification of existing theories of sense of place is necessary for this context and outline proposals for further work.

ISPR 2011: THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR PRESENCE RESEARCH ANNUAL CONFERENCE

Abstract This paper draws on existing phenomenological discourse of place to examine presence during the experience of virtual worlds. By analysing the occupied and experienced places during the inworld experience–the physical and virtual surroundings, for example–this paper aims to understand how the user feels a sense of presence or a sense of being in a virtual place.

Creating a sense of place with a deliberately constrained virtual environment

International Journal of Cognitive Performance Support, 2013

This study explores the premise that a high degree of realism is not a necessary condition for a 'sense of place' in mediated experiences. We report on the usefulness of an intentionally low fidelity virtual environment which relies on the metaphor of the 'tourist gaze' and the power of imagination to create a sense of place. This application was a non-immersive representation of Edinburgh. In evaluation, participants reported experiencing a sense of place rather than a mere collection of images. We discuss the results in the light of weak and strong cognitive representation and indicate potential applications.

Spirit of Place and Sense of Place in Virtual Realities

Techne, 2006

About forty years ago, when print media were still in their ascendancy, Marshall McLuhan argued that all media are extensions of the senses and that the rational view of the world associated with print is being replaced by a world-view associated with electronic media that stresses feelings and emotions . In 2003 researchers from the School of Information Management Sciences at Berkeley estimated that five exabytes (five billion gigabytes) of information had been generated in the previous year, equivalent to 37,000 times the holdings of the Library of Congress and that 92.00% of this was on magnetic media, mostly hard disks, while only 0.01% was in print (http://www. sims.berkeley.edu, 2003). This SIMS estimate could be wrong by several orders of magnitude and it would still be clear that the era of the printed word is waning rapidly. We are well-advised to pay attention to McLuhan's suggestion that electronic media change how we think and how we feel.

An investigation into virtual representations of real places

2002

The paper describes the main themes of a recently funded research project under the European Community's Future and Emerging Technologies 'Presence' initiative. The aim of the research is to develop new tools for empirical and theoretical studies of presence based on the concept of the observer's embodiment in the computationally created virtual environment. The approach will be based on true-to-life visual and auditory information presented in real-time. These will utilise a range of projection technologies from Head Mounted Displays to a six sided CAVE. The project will undertake a series of empirical investigations into the experience of 'being there' in relation to real places and objects. Analysis of presence will be at the level of psychological, physiological and neurological. At this early stage of the research four themes are presented: acquisition and real time rendering of real places; augmentation of such representations; psychophysiological aspects of presence and establishing a sense of place and embodiment. 7 References Benjamin, W. (1997) Charles Baudelaire Verso: London Borden, I. (2001) Skateboarding, space and the city: Architecture and the Body, Berg, Oxford and New York.

Virtuality and Place

2002

This paper explores the relationship between place, computation, and experience. In particular, it seeks to understand the zone that exists between the digital world on the one hand, and the physical world on the other. It is suggested that the ideal of "immersive ...

Virtual Environments as Situated Techno-Social Performances: Virtual West Cambridge Case-Study

This paper focuses on Virtual West Cambridge – an interactive multimedia environment constructed to support design and development of a large-scale, long-term urban project. In architecture, such persistent, continuously-growing virtual environments are unusual. Consequently, they pose unique challenges in procurement, development, maintenance and utilization. This paper re-conceptualizes virtual environments as situated techno-social performances rather than software programs or multimedia representations and discusses how this re-conceptualisation can inform their understanding, design and utilisation.

Virtual spatial presence and philosophies of perception

2022

Virtual Reality (VR) technology presents an opportunity to study perception in general and perceptual illusions in particular. Prominent philosophers have tapped into VR theories within works on perception, and current virtual perceptual frameworks vary from Predictive Processing to varieties of enactivist explanations. Mel Slater, for example, has developed a theory of Place Illusion (PI), defined as the immediate transportation of the self into a virtual 3D space, despite users knowing that they are not really there in the virtual environment. Within such work on the virtual illusion, researchers have catered simultaneously to both enactivist and prediction based representationalist approaches, suggesting a possible contradiction in fully making a case for the virtual illusion. The aim of this thesis is to critically assess three theories of virtual perception using PI as the case study for virtual perceptual illusion: i. theorists can either fully commit to the original sensorimotor explanation, ii. abandon the sensorimotor framework and embrace a Predictive Processing route, or iii. pursue a dynamic systems claim for transient stochastic states. The thesis concludes that a dynamic systems approach to perception offers a stronger account for the virtual experience, by retaining some notions of generative influence without cashing out experience as content driven representations, all while positioning the role of the body as deeply interconnected with its brain and environment. Ultimately, this will strengthen the role of virtual illusions among theories of perception and make VR technology an ideal tool for testing basic components of experience.