In the current mainstream Virtual Reality (VR) practice and design, creating an immersive isolated virtual environment is the canon. Audiences are usually situated in a singular and complete form of space in VR to receive the fully immersive experience. Nevertheless, in this paper, I propose a different way of thinking about the practice and design of VR. Rather than seeing VR as a singular and isolated space in relation to other spaces, I am considering a potentiality to have a more expansive and reflexive VR practice and design. I call this Emersive VR in contrast to Immersive VR. Emersion is a concept borrowing from body ecology, which is a field based on the philosophy of awakening and consciousness. Emersion in body ecology is different from immersion in that people can still sustain self-consciousness without being subsumed by the other. In the notion of Emersive VR, audiences are not located in a singular and complete virtual space but in a differential space between physical and virtual. The spatial difference is folded through the VR experience perceived by the audiences. I highlight two different approaches to construct an Emersive VR experience in this paper: multisensory VR experience and reflexive VR storytelling. In both of them, audiences are not isolated in a singular virtual world but in a differential space with multiple embodiments. I use my VR project, Fair Sai Re Pi VR, as a case study in discussing Emersive VR. Fair Sai Re Pi VR is a multisensory VR experience fictionalizing a fire therapy sold by a pyramid scheme company in China. The audience’s body is between physical “therapeutic space” and virtual space, and fictional story and reality. This VR project attempts to question the relationship between Chinese Traditional Medicine and Modernity via the Emersive VR design. Emersive VR is a reconfiguration of immersive VR. It is to expand the idea of immersive VR and sketch a more dynamic future of VR as a critical media.

eroto-system employs live performance, multichannel audiovisual installation, and sculptural elements activated by touch and physical presence. It presents a science fiction narrative surrounding a technology called eroto-system that absorbs erotic charge and converts it into an alternative source of energy. The live performance entails a guided demonstration of the two interactive components of the installation which are activated specifically through the bodies of audience members. This project examines how desire, pleasure, and embodiment have been reshaped by the technologies that mediate them. eroto-system speculates on possible futures for sexuality and, more specifically, our conceptions of selfhood and collectivity.This document contains an introduction to the project, a theoretical essay exploring its conceptual foundations, a section describing the process of producing the interactive installation and live performance, and a conclusion reflecting on possibilities for the project’s continued development. This document also provides several documentation images of the installation and performance as well as an Appendix that includes the performance script.

ABSTRACT

The Last Galician Switchboard

By James Forest Reid

The Last Galician Switchboard is an interactive multi-screen video installation that follows a switchboard operator haunted by family left behind in Eastern Europe. The piece incorporates familial letters and excerpts from Yiddish theatre, literature, and folklore to offer an interactive glimpse into life during wartime, Jewish experience, and forced relocation. Upon entering the installation room, participants can interact with an analogue switchboard to listen to audio recreations of historical communications between Jewish refugees during the first World War, voice-acted excerpts from Yiddish folklore, and remastered ethnographic recordings. Simultaneously, participants can watch a collage of thematically related archival stock footage projected on three different screens. This thesis project merges fictional and documentary sources in order to create an accessible understanding of a complex culture haunted by stories of resistance, perseverance, and survival.

Finding Norma is a multi-screen video installation that investigates the work of the Brazilian lesbian filmmaker Norma Bahia Pontes (1941-2010). These include her films on a transnational path through the Cinema Novo movement in Brazil, anticolonial documentaries made in France, and lesbian feminist videotapes filmed in New York during the 1970s. Amidst the fragmented work and gaps of Norma's mysterious existence, the artist Livia Perez conducts an intimate search across time that combines experimental/documentary approaches to expand time, echo Norma's works, and claim her place in Film History. During this search, Livia recognizes herself in Norma and tries to establish a dialogue between two generations of female Latin artists across borders.