Virtual Flesh - Doctoral Dissertation Project (Dr.art., in progress)
Project Information
- Candidate: Arne Vogelgesang
- Affiliation: Artistic Research Center (ARC), mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna
- Supervisors:
- Evelyn Annuß, mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna
- Johannes Kretz, mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna
- Keywords: XR, performance, desire, body representation, technology
- External links:
Short Abstract
Virtual Flesh connects live 1-on-1 performance, XR technology, and discourses on sexual desire. It is concerned with technologies of „extended reality“ in the material sense, but also in a more metaphorical one: memory as self-extension in time, body representations as extensions of imaginaries of the flesh, art and research as mutually extending frameworks of truthification.
Extended Synopsis
The artistic core of the project is a multilayered XR one-on-one performance (XRLOOP), interfacing an Extended Reality HMD with a mock psychological research setting and an intimate fictional memory retelling about an encounter between two persons on the basis of cannibalistic fetish desire. This performance uses questionnaires to performatively establish the fiction of research as well as for generating "real" data about "virtual" themes.
The core work is accompanied by several theoretical research modules narrating its context:
- "Extended Reality" traces the history of XR technology and the power fantasies that accompanied it,
- "Digital Humans" similarly follows the development of humanoid representation in 3D data spaces,
- "Experimental Apparatus" describes how experimental setups have been leveraged in HCI and psychological research to explore and legitimate the technological development,
- "Anthropophagy" deals with the genesis and media production of the online cannibal fetish community.
Research Questions / Aims
- How is desire for bodies encoded in techno-scientific apparatuses?
- Test the potential of aesthetic techniques for establishing dynamics of (dis)identification:
- dyadic speech in fictional memory construction
- levels of techno-visual realism
- cross-layer sign/motive relations
- Can the intersection of different forms of textual & visual knowledge performance trace a form of what could be termed genuinely performative reflexive knowledge?
Methods & Process
Artistic Methods: installation, performance, writing, 3D-generated environment, contextual layering
Research Methods: digital ethnography, questionnaires, scientifictional tech-historiography, artistic desearch
Research Contexts
For the subject matter of sexual cannibalism, extensive digi-ethnographical and aesthetic research was conducted online.
Outputs
- Performance NEW FLESH
- v1 (realised Spring 2025, ~100 runs)
- v2 (pending)
- RC Dissertation Publication VIRTUAL FLESH (pending)
- Flanking publications
- (with Patrizia Breil) Virtuelle Intimität. In: Intervenierende Intimitäten. Praktiken, Körper, Künste. (Bielefeld: Transcript 2026 [in preparation])
-
Gooning. Embodying technological power as a porn addiction fetish. In: Arse Elektronika Anthology #6 (edition mono 2026 [in preparation])
Past / Upcoming Presentations
- NEW FLESH performances
- NEW FLESH talks
- 38. Stuttgarter Filmwinter 2025-01-17 (link)
- XR talks
- 5 Jahre Digitaltheater Augsburg 2025-10-11 (link)
- DESIRING TECHNOLOGY talks
Performance Team
- Artistic lead, performance, 3D: Arne Vogelgesang
- Performance, dramaturgic counsel: Marina Dessau
- Light, tour management: Juri Rendler
- Construction, workshop management: Georg Noky
- Networking: Robert Wolf
- Avatar sculpting: Franck Besançon
- Additional Tech Artist: Christian Schlaeffer
- Woodwork: Tom Streidl, Mario Pautz
- Driver, tour management: Luisa Böhm
- Additional support: Tristan Sötje, Philipp Gregorius, Johanna Kießling, Koen Schmeets, Svenja Haarmann-Thiemann
Acknowledgements
Akademie für Theater und Digitalität (prototyping fellowship), Berliner Festspiele (support), Deutsches Theater Berlin (v1 shows), Volkstheater Wien (v1 shows/coproduction).
© 2025 Arne Vogelgesang. Unless otherwise noted, content licensed under CC BY-NC-SA.