Lone Wolves Stick Together: Research as a Journey to an Aesthetic Understanding of Immersion and Participation through VR and roleplaying (LARP)
(2024)
author(s): Nadja Lipsyc
published in: Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences
This research explores the artistic and critical potentials of using tools from live action roleplaying (larp) to create narrative VR experiences. In particular, it unfolds the conception, physical play and VR play and production of the live action roleplaying (larp) Lone Wolves Stick Together. Inspired by the film Stalker (1979) by Tarkovsky, Lone Wolves Stick Together stages the immersive environment as an omniscient Sphynx-like character that pushes the players to question one another and to introspect. By using larp and video game design knowledge conjugated to cinematic aesthetics, this research project seeks to honor the creative and narrative potentials of immersion and participation. As such, between 2018 and 2023, this research took the form of classic chamber larps, immersive theater experiences, scenography installation, VR larps (including two other projects: The Space Between Us and Ancient Hours) and a final multimedia installation. The artistic methods rely on principles of environmental design, explored physically through production design and ambisonics, and virtually through a highly reactive virtual environment. The research method is based on a constructivist approach where we experiment to find an answer, not the truth. Here, experimentation is not conceptual but aesthetic: knowledge is lived and felt through artistic experience. Centred around VR and within a film and new media context, this research also develops a reflection on the industrial and technological influences on the creative process and their friction with artistic-research.
A drawing hangs in the middle
(2023)
author(s): Junuka Deshpande
published in: Research Catalogue
This exposition is based on a project that explored observation of a crossroad through drawings. The drawings are made from the same place on a sidewalk observing the same square over 30 days. During this process, I tried to explore how a continuous observation of a space and the outcome of the process evokes a certain sense of connectedness and reflexive dialogue with the place and its elements- visible and invisible. This artistic research contemplates on the idea of too early too late through the process of drawing where the drawing emerges in the moment, while can be anticipated early and interpreted in hindsight.
My exposition considers the act of drawing as an embodied form of recording as opposed to drawing as an image-making (representational) exercise. This process of drawing becomes an engagement with the existing spatial elements, arrangements, their interconnections and importantly, with the self, that is observing. Along with the external engagement and a dialogue with the space, the moment of drawing is both- the outcome of observation and a connection in the moment of making it. This tension between an immediacy in the moment of drawing and the reflectivity in the process of meaning-making of the drawings creates a parallel relationship between an immediate present and the immediate past. The empty space on the surface before drawing, therefore becomes a potential space to record moments from the space around and to remember the moments that are passing by.
The work, in the form of drawings of various sizes aspires to present the engagement with the space. The work also gives me an opportunity to find critical moments in the records of time, memory and space. The drawing as an outcome hence, hangs in the middle between the moment of record and moment of being.
Post-immersion: Towards a discursive situation in sound art
(2020)
author(s): Budhaditya Chattopadhyay
published in: RUUKKU - Studies in Artistic Research
Immersion is a much-used word in the domain of sound-based media arts. It is through immersion that the audiences are often made to engage with the artworks, using technical devices and medial dispositive that are at the intersection of culture and materiality in a post-digital era. In this mode of artistic representation, immersion operates as a context for realizing the production of presence as an illusion of non-mediation (Reiter, Grimshaw et al). The main concern of this proposed article is whether the audience tends to become a passive and non-acting guest within the immersive space often constructed by an authoritarian and technocratic consumer-corporate culture. I will argue in the article that in this mode of non-activity the audience may lose the motivation to question the content and context of the work by falling into a sensual and indulgent mode of experience, therefore allowing the consumerist-corporate powers to take over the free will of the audience (Lukas et al). From the position of a socially and environmentally committed sound artist myself, I will argue for producing a discursive context rather than an immersive one in sound artworks that aim to represent contemporary crisis such as climate change critically engaging with the Anthropocenic conditions. I will examine the possibility to create artworks where the individuality of the audience is carefully considered and taken into account as a crucial parameter. I will discuss a number of my recent works to develop and substantiate the argument.
Site Awareness in Music – recontextualizing a sensation of another place
(2020)
author(s): Knut Olaf Sunde
published in: Norwegian Academy of Music
The project argues that a sensation of another place is vital to the recognition of unfamiliar perspectives.
Space and sound are inextricably connected. The surroundings and context are central to how we perceive external stimuli, such as images, events, history, ideas or music. The brain interprets and make choices by association, based on what the body perceives and based on previous knowledge and experience. How humans listen, hear, see, perceive, interpret and react to our surroundings are based on our cognitive structures.
An unformatting of society is needed.
A risk makes the body and brain aware and alert. Adrenalin is released to the blood, enabling the organism to sudden and severe effort. Risk implies something unestablished, uncertain, a danger, something unknown. Risk implies the possibility of failure and ultimately death. Risk increase anxiety and excitement, enabling the alertness needed to maneuver away from or solve problems. When something is at stake, interest is set into play. The unknown is by its very nature beyond the body’s experience.
The project is about increasing the awareness of the situational and contextual implications of music. This is enquired through three works. For each site or situation I work with, I analyze its characteristics, such as acoustical conditions, the relations of the place to its surroundings, the shape of the landscape and historical or political context.
I try to create immersive, audiovisual projects that are connected to a certain place.
I aim to involve qualities and characteristics from the place, shaping a conversation, putting something at stake.
I conceive a music activating the place, making created situations.
I do this because there is a close link between memory, comprehension and place.
The sense of place and ability to navigate is essential to our memory and bodily existence in the world.
Main supervisor: Ole Lützow-Holm
Second supervisor: Marianne Heier
IN - The creation of an immerive music performance
(2017)
author(s): Jonathan Bonny
published in: KC Research Portal
Name: Jonathan Bonny
Main Subject: Classical Percussion
Research Supervisors: Gerard Bouwhuis, Fedor Teunisse
Title of Research: IN – the creation of an immersive music performance
Research Question:
How can immersive performance concepts be used to create a better connection between a musician and his audience?
Summary of Results:
In my research, I reflected on several aspects of a concert and how I want to communicate with my audience. Throughout the research I realised that finding ways to immerse an audience is easier said than done. My belief in immersion as a tool to guide listeners towards a certain atmosphere, attitude or interpretation is nevertheless still as strong as before. More than ever, I am convinced that this is the way for me to perform. This is particularly the case for contemporary music where inexperienced listeners might appreciate some guidance. This paper aims to inform (performing) readers of the possible (positive and negative) consequences of creating an immersive performance. Creating an immersive performance is difficult. It takes a lot of time, something musicians often do not have. In addition to learning the music, the performer needs time to brainstorm about the kind of immersion that supports the musical idea and does not distract from it. The line between the two is very thin. Once the immersion concept is established it often takes a lot of preparation to execute it. To bring elaborate ideas to fruition musicians will need the help of technicians, engineers, other artists etc. This explains why immersive performances are often organised by ensembles that rely on a bigger production team and budget. The danger here lies in the fact that those teams are often too far removed from the actual content of the music. Realising this made me think about other ways to connect with an audience. I concluded that besides immersion, also attitude and mindset are very powerful tools to decrease the distance between a performer and the audience. Low-tech solutions like literally performing very close to or surrounded by them are very effective to emotionally connect with the audience. Because of the reflective character of the topic I chose to write my dissertation in the form of an essay. My goal is not to present 'the ultimate truth' but to inspire myself and other musicians to create a personal (contemporary) performing identity.
Biography:
Jonathan Bonny (°1992, Bruges) studied classical percussion at the School of Arts in Ghent, the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki and the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague. He is actively building towards a music culture that knows no distinction between genres and he is consistently looking for innovative ways to present contemporary arts to a bigger audience. He co-founded Headliner (adventurous music collective), Kunstenfestival PLAN B (contemporary arts festival) and IHEART (band).
Immersion and proximity: music, sound, and subjectivity in The Memory Dealer
(2015)
author(s): Sarah Hibberd, Nanette Nielsen
published in: Journal of Sonic Studies
With a focus on narrative film music techniques and sonic constructions of subjectivity, this article explores the soundtrack of The Memory Dealer. We account for whether and how immersion is achieved and discuss the ways in which TMD brings novelty to the area of sound studies, not least through its relevance for phenomenology. Analyzing participants’ responses, we argue that immersion in TMD is less dependent on a narrative understanding of the soundtrack and more reliant on a particular kind of subjective immersion that is deepened and maintained through sound. We show how, in order to achieve this immersion, the soundtrack needs to support a balance between players’ self-reflection and their self-consciousness: whereas the former can deepen engagement, the latter can be distracting and pull the player out of the experience. The various levels of subjectivity and sonic interaction in TMD reveal new avenues for immersion through sound in pervasive drama.
Non-Duality and Artistic Creation
(last edited: 2020)
author(s): Maja Maletkovic
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
How can metaphysical concept presented in the Vedic school of non-duality (Advaita) be used as a gridline to describe works of artist working with Spirituality as a guiding force of their creation?
Further, how could this concept be re-interpreted into a XR experience?
Sensuous Learning
(last edited: 2018)
author(s): Gry Worre Hallberg
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
In my artistic practice I operate from the intentions articulated in the Sensuous Society manifesto - a potential future world governed by aesthetic principles instead of the current economic written as a response to the financial crisis in 2008 and to the ongoing ecological crisis. Since then I have investigated the role of the sensuous in a sustainable future and currently operate from the overall research question: What is sensuous transformation and how does it contribute to a sustainable future through Sensuous Learning processes?
Sensuous Learning is a conceptual frame and process-oriented tool to explore the lived learning experiences that are unfolded in the performative framework of my ongoing large-scale project Sisters Academy – The School of a Sensuous Society - through which I invented Sensuous Learning as a terminological entity as presented in the TEDx talk Sensuous Learning (2015). The findings of Sisters Academy are Sensuous Learning contributions. I will include our 'archive of detritus' (Reason, 2003) when unpacking Sensuous Learning by situating it theoretically and methodologically and by unfolding and further developing how it is also a novel immersive and interactive performance and learning method with transformative potential that may support a transition towards a more sustainable future.
The concept has the potentiality of covering a wider and more differentiated field, which is already happening through our contributions in various contexts artistic, educational, activist and research-oriented which is the intersection in which we operate.
How can metaphysical concept presented in the Vedic school of non-duality (Advaita) be used as a gridline to describe works of artist working with Spirituality as a guiding force of their creation? Further, how could this concept be re-interpreted into a XR experience?open exposition comments (1)