Virtual Art & Virtual Reality

A book with participation of:

Lucia Santaella (Forewords)
Ana Tereza Brandão
Carlos Augusto M. da Nóbrega
Carlos Henrique Paulino
Carlos Henrique Rezende Falci
Casey Reas
Cátia Rodrigues Barbosa
Celina Figueiredo Lage
Débora Aita Gasparetto
Francisco Carlos de Carvalho Marinho
Helena Barranha
Ítalo Travenzoli
Izabela Marcolino Carvalho Costa
João Victor Boechat Gomide
José Ricardo da Costa Miranda Júnior
Jussi Parikka
Lynn Alves
​Lucia Dossin
Marcelo Franco Porto Margreet Riphagen
Maria Luiza P. G. Fragoso
Marinah R. C. Ribeiro
Miriam Rasch
Nara Cristina Santos
Pablo Gobira
Regina Mota
Renata Maria Abrantes Baracho
Rogério Barbosa da Silva
Suzete Venturelli
​Tadeus Mucelli
Tânia Fraga
Tatiana Paz
Tulio Ottoni

"(...) There are at least two meanings in which post-digital can be understood.
First, considering the prefix "post" in its temporal meaning, "after", post-digital would be referring to everything that came after the expanding and refined installation of computational algorithms in all human activities. It is a neutral, strictly chronological sense. But there is also a critical sense: it is necessary to go through its gains and losses. This is what is meant by  "post-digital". Gone are the days of euphoria, by the way, accompanied by dysphoria that in its extremes nostalgically announced the apocalypse. Fortunately, a time of exceeding thoughts concerning the digital has gone. Now is time to face its ambivalences, paradoxes and contradictions. This is precisely what has been called "post-digital".
The book contains a myriad of perspectives, fine prismatic subdivisions of the technological art in its digital features with specific details of the production that makes use of new generation devices and resources, such as kinect cameras,multi interactive media, cyber interventions, mixed and augmented reality, three-dimensional modeling, programmable environments, complex algorithms, neural helmets, etc. On the other hand, the book is punctuated with theoretical and critical essays in which the new conditions of the museum, artists’ books, hybrid arts, authorship, digital art festival, digital cinematography and last but not least, geophysical materiality and geochemistry of the media are rethought and faced in the light of the most current challenges."
- from preface by Lucia Santaella.

O livro parte das teorias e práticas em torno das imagens técnicas, tais como a fotografia, o cinema e o vídeo, para discutir a cultura visual e os regimes de imagem que surgem com a inserção as tecnologias digitais nos aparatos de produção de imagens, incluindo o vídeo interativo, a realidade virtual, a realidade aumentada e a arte cibernética.

“Este livro que o leitor tem em suas mãos representa o coroamento de uma série de discussões, polêmicas e produções que se estendem pelo menos desde os anos 1960, mas que ganhou um contorno mais definido a partir do final do século XX: trata-se de um balanço do que significou o surgimento das tecnologias digitais nos conceitos de cultura, arte, filosofia e modos de vida. O autor, Cesar Baio, atualiza as discussões anteriores colocadas por autores como Vilém Flusser, Edmond Couchot, Peter Weibel, Júlio Plaza, Lúcia Santaella e tantos outros que as formularam num período imediatamente anterior, sobre como tudo se transforma quando se passa para uma existência digital, não apenas nas imagens, sons e textos, mas também na condução do pensamento, dos novos comportamentos e modos de produção e consumo, da vida contemporânea, enfim. Ele analisa também uma seleção de novos criadores, nos mais diversos campos das artes, que souberam tirar proveito não apenas das novas tecnologias, mas também das novas formas de sociabilidade e de economia política que se formaram ao redor delas.”
Arlindo Machado

“Em Máquinas de imagem, Baio nos proporciona uma acurada leitura da condição contemporânea, atualizando as proposições desenvolvidas por Vilém Flusser sobre os aparelhos técnicos de mediação. Uma perspectiva teórica consistente, radicada na identificação das linhas de forças singularizantes dos fenômenos culturais contemporâneos, considerados a partir da leitura crítica das formulações conceituais predominantes até o início dos anos 1980, mas, igualmente decisivo, desde o ponto de vista da liberdade do artista e do participante implicados na aventura estética”
Antonio Fatorelli

My research into Virtual Reality technology and its central property of immersion has indicated that immersion in Virtual Reality (VR) electronic systems is a significant key to the understanding of contemporary culture as well as considerable aspects of previous culture as detected in the histories of philosophy and the visual arts. The fundamental change in aesthetic perception engendered by immersion, a perception which is connected to the ideal of total-immersion in virtual space, identifies certain shifts in ontology which are relevant to a better understanding of the human being. This understanding was achieved through a broad inquiry into the histories of Virtual Reality, philosophy, and the visual arts and has lead to the formulation of an aesthetic theory of immersive consciousness indicative of immersive culture. The primary subject of this discourse is immersion then: an experience which will be identified within the dissertation as the indispensable characteristic of Virtual Reality. The understanding of immersion arrived at here will be used to fashion a synchronous theory of art particularly informed by encounters and concepts of immersion into virtuality. To sufficiently address this subject in a scholarly fashion, I have researched, found and accumulated aesthetic and philosophic examples of immersive tendencies, as found within the histories of art and philosophy, which subsequently contributed towards the articulation of what I have come to call immersive consciousness.

"Our visual relationships with architectural propositions are highly mediated by representations, and the image-technologies used to construct them. The context in which these propositions are explored and tested is conceptually framed by image-technologies, such as computer-based design and visualisation software. However, much of the knowledge that underpins how architecture is represented is derived directly from concepts and techniques indebted to Renaissance pictorial art. For example, linear perspective’s influence upon how architectural space is constructed in computer-based environments today remains relatively unchallenged, whilst other creative disciplines apply alternative non-perspectival means of representing space. Further, the re–emerging interest in surface effects throughout the 1990s has—in no small part—materialised as a direct result of increasingly powerful computer processors in combination with the seamless transfer of information between the computer–based design and visualisation software that is used to conceive complex geometrical forms, and the fabrication technologies applied to manufacture these complex geometries as built architectural forms. These fabrication technologies have allowed for the relatively cheap application of images onto almost any material and surface of a built form, with little to no consideration of the broader History of Visuality upon which these image–technologies are ultimately indebted.

In order to reveal potential insights concerning how emerging image–technologies might affect the conception and experience of spatial effects in Architecture, it is necessary to better understand how space was represented and incorporated within pictures through the lens of older relations between space and image in the History of Western Art. This thesis presents a history of concepts and techniques that outline how viewers have engaged with pictures when displayed in space, how space was represented within the image’s composition (space in images) and, finally, how the space in which the image was displayed itself was subsumed within the composition of the image (space within images). This thesis makes a significant and original contribution to the discipline of Architecture by opening up issues of contemporary image-technology, exploring their impact on the tripartite relationship between images in space and space in/within images. This thesis both historicises and speculates on the changing relationship between pictures and viewers in Western Visual Culture; in terms of the dynamic interchange between static and moving images, and stationary and moving viewers. That is to say, it is both reflective and projective in attempting to provide a lens through which to suggest relevant techniques that could be applied in the conceptual and technical application of pictures on the interior and exterior surfaces of architecture today.

Methodologically, this thesis primarily uses historical resources in order to instrumentally explore contemporary problems in Visual Culture and Architecture in parallel to the construction of a series of design–based research demonstrations and analytical diagrams constructed by the author. Significantly, the design–based research demonstrations and analytical diagrams aim to make explicit the conceptual and technical implications of the space–image relation in Architecture that are rarely manifest in a clear, illustrative form by authorities in the field. These analytical diagrams provide a clear visual explanation of complex space–image concepts that reveal original insights into what is at stake when old concepts in Western Art are brought to bear on new problems in Architecture today. The combination of scholarly research, diagrammatic analysis and design–based research demonstration provides a more holistic and productive method through which to discuss, assess and reveal new knowledge concerning the space–image relation. Importantly, this dissertation does not set out to provide an authoritative account of how viewers have historically engaged with images in Art and Architecture, rather it aims to seek out critical moments of transition in the History of Visuality, and reflect upon them through designerly activity.

This thesis discusses four core issues through a series of case studies and design–based research demonstrations. Firstly, this thesis outlines concepts and techniques used in pictorial composition in the late medieval period. This discussion provides a series of original organisational concepts and generative techniques through which to include co-existent viewpoints within one picture: the capacity of a pictorial composition, such as Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Sala della Pace mural (1338–40), to include a series of different viewpoints that address specific scenes within the image’s overall composition. Secondly, this thesis outlines and assesses key methods of prescribing viewpoint through the application of perspective-based compositional structures in a series of case-study paintings exemplary of Renaissance pictorialism. Thirdly, this thesis outlines and assesses centralised viewpoint and immersive pictorial compositions in Art and Western Visual Culture through the formation of a genealogical connection between the nineteenth-century panorama, Apple’s Quicktime Virtual Reality panorama and Image-Objects in the 1980s, and Jeffrey Shaw’s ‘mixed-reality’ installations of the 1990s. Finally, this thesis outlines and assesses how viewpoint is affected by pictorial compositions that do not represent space, that is, compositions that are non-representational."

Within education, concepts such as distance learning, and open universities, are now becoming more widely used for teaching and learning. However, due to the nature of the subject domain, the teaching of Science, Technology, and Engineering are still relatively behind when using new technological approaches (particularly for online distance learning). The reason for this discrepancy lies in the fact that these fields often require laboratory exercises to provide effective skill acquisition and hands-on experience. Often it is difficult to make these laboratories accessible for online access. Either the real lab needs to be enabled for remote access or it needs to be replicated as a fully software-based virtual lab. We argue for the latter concept since it offers some advantages over remotely controlled real labs, which will be elaborated further in this paper. We are now seeing new emerging technologies that can overcome some of the potential difficulties in this area. These include: computer graphics, augmented reality, computational dynamics, and virtual worlds. This paper summarizes the state of the art in virtual laboratories and virtual worlds in the fields of science, technology, and engineering. The main research activity in these fields is discussed but special emphasis is put on the field of robotics due to the maturity of this area within the virtual-education community. This is not a coincidence; starting from its widely multidisciplinary character, robotics is a perfect example where all the other fields of engineering and physics can contribute. Thus, the use of virtual labs for other scientific and non-robotic engineering uses can be seen to share many of the same learning processes. This can include supporting the introduction of new concepts as part of learning about science and technology, and introducing more general engineering knowledge, through to supporting more constructive (and collaborative) education and training activities in a more complex engineering topic such as robotics. The objective of this paper is to outline this problem space in more detail and to create a valuable source of information that can help to define the starting position for future research.

A major claim about virtual reality (VR) is that it can foster empathy through digital simulations. This article argues, however, that technologies intended to foster empathy merely presume to acknowledge the experience of another, but fail to do so in any meaningful way. With empathy, the experiential grounds upon which ethical and moral arguments are made require an essential transmissibility, and that which cannot be expressed in seemingly 'universal' terms cannot be acknowledged. This article makes its arguments through a discussion of VR as an 'empathy machine', and contextualizes empathy in digital media by suggesting it repeats not a psychological construct, but a concept derived from late 19th-century German aesthetic theory and its conceptualization of Einfühlung. It proposes radical compassion as an alternative to empathy, and suggests that empathy is a limiting and problematic concept that effaces another's experience unless it can be made sensible. Empathy machine refers to any attempt to make sensible to oneself the emotional experience of another via technology, often with the goal of inhabiting another body. This term has regularly been used to describe virtual reality (VR), as VR, at least ideally, permits one to see through another's eyes, embodying their experiences, thus 'empathising' with them. Empathy machines can also refer to various technological means for identifying subtle movements of the human face in order to create realistic digital models of facial expressions mapped to emotional states, which are used both in popular games and in the context of autism therapy (e.g. Kandalaft et al., 2012), often as a troubling method to 'cure' autism through VR-based avatars and simulations. Digital media are thus assumed to provoke an empathetic response from an individual while playing games, communicating within virtual worlds, and beyond – if these technologies are properly designed. But the specific association of VR with something called empathy, occurring throughout

In the recent decades, artists and researchers have shown an increased interest in applying new technologies to traditional arts in Japan, especially in the field of calligraphy art, painting, and the Zen culture. In one hand, modern calligraphers begin to use different media to create ‘digital calligraphy’ and collaborate with programmers to produce new experiences. In the other hand, media artists have been utilising audio-visual media to reinterpret the traditional aesthetics through emerging technologies, such as employing virtual reality technology to write the ‘spatial calligraphy’.

Besides, concerning the menace of losing traditional skills, researchers have developed the motion-copying system which can record the calligrapher’s movement precisely and reproduce faithfully as the original piece. They intend to use this technology to educate the young generation. However, following the rapid advance of technology and the permeation of digital media, there are several issues arose, such as : How can we evaluate ‘digital calligraphy’ and in which aesthetic standard? Without the mediacy of real brush and ink, can we express ourselves more directly by using fingers to write calligraphy on screens? How will the motion-copying system influence the relationships between masters, teachers, and students?

By delving into threes dimensions—aesthetics, technology, and social institution, this thesis points out the lurking jeopardy of substituting new technology for traditional pedagogy. Meanwhile, it also analyses the irreplaceable core of traditional aesthetics and the dilemma of interactive media artworks to show how the emerging technologies transform the traditional culture value from the analog to the digital, and suggest the new interpretation of ‘aura’ to retain in the postmodern age of ubiquitous media.

Keywords:
Shodō, calligraphy art, Ikebana, Rimpa, Walter Benjamin, Fredric Jameson, Zen, Enso, interactive art, extended mind, handwriting, motion-copying technology, virtual reality.

Supervisor/s: Prof. Dr. Oliver Grau & Prof. Dr. Naoko Tosa

This paper examines questions arising in the interface between ethics,
aesthetics, nature and technology: in regard to our knowledge of reality and
nature; the valuation of nature; the ontological status of virtual worlds vis a
vis nature; and the aesthetic implications of the virtual reality experience vis
a vis the experience of nature. Is nature itself a human construction? What –
if anything – is there about nature that would distinguish it from a virtual
reality simulation? And what – if anything – is there about the aesthetic experience
of nature that would distinguish it from the aesthetic experience of
a persuasive virtual reality simulation? Is it possible to value nature while
doubting its existence?

Analysis of virtual reality as fantasy and as a historical symptom. Enthusiasm conjuration, a concept developed by Derrida, is applied to technology to understand our ambivalent relationship to the concept of the Real. This text develops an hantology for new media art.

In immersive virtual environments (IVEs), users may observe negative consequences of a risky health behavior in a personally involving way via digital simulations. In the context of an ongoing health promotion campaign, IVEs coupled with pamphlets are proposed as a novel messaging strategy to heighten personal relevance and involvement with the issue of softdrink consumption and obesity, as well as perceptions that the risk is proximal and imminent. The framework of construal level theory guided the design of a 2 (tailoring: other vs. self) × 2 (medium: pamphlet only vs. pamphlet with IVEs) between-subjects experiment to test the efficacy in reducing the consumption of soft drinks over 1 week. Immediately following exposure, tailoring the message to the self (vs. other) seemed to be effective in reducing intentions to consume soft drinks. The effect of tailoring dissipated after 1 week, and measures of actual soft-drink consumption 1 week following experimental treatments demonstrated that coupling IVEs with the pamphlet was more effective. Behavioral intention was a significant predictor of actual behavior, but underlying mechanisms driving intentions and actual behavior were distinct. Results prescribed a messaging strategy that incorporates both tailoring and coupling IVEs with traditional media to increase behavioral changes over time.

The use and creation of 'Virtual Reality' (VR) models in the field of Egyptology has increased in recent years, as lower-cost digital modeling software comes within reach of more archaeological projects. The use of VR models for the recording of archaeological data and the display of site reconstructions offers incredible potential for teaching, research and outreach.

Wearable technologies are being used to monitor performance real time, big data is helping coaches analyze athletes so that they can be improved further and hypobaric chambers that simulate high altitude environment are being used by wrestlers and other combat athletes to train in low oxygen environments to condition their cardiovascular systems. However, while all these technologies focus on making athletes physically better, the psychological component has been missing. It is said that sports are 90% mental and 10% physical, so, suffice to say, there is a lot of scope for improvement as tools to help athletes win the mind game are finally here in the form of virtual reality. Because training is only as good as the sense of immersion it can imparts and the closer a simulation approximates real life conditions, the more an athlete can learn from it. Now, if sports were all about having the greatest endurance and strength, then the results would always be predictable, which would frankly be quite boring No, it's the skills with which sportsmen and women exhibit while in the heat of the moment, as they gracefully intercept and react to their opponents that makes sports truly exciting, and this is where VR can help them. Imagine a baseball player who can practice his swings as many times he wants against a virtual representation of his opponent. Not only can he analyze the intricacies of his throw, but the simulation can be setup to let the batter practice at his or her own level. The batter can also review his performance later. Likewise, boxers can practice speed drills, shadow box and train their reflexes in VR far better than they could ever do in real life. Since a virtual situation is completely within our control, it can be tailor made to recreate any scenario. This boxer who tried out Thrill of the Fight was certainly optimistic about how VR could be used to train athletes in the immediate future. Race car drivers will find an immediate interest in VR as many games such as Project Cars are extremely immersive and do not require a very expensive setup to get going. Being able to race as if it were real without burning through gallons of fuel and no risk of grievous injury is something a driver will surely appreciate.

This diploma thesis introduces the production of cylindrical and spherical panoramas and explains how to link individual panoramas to make a virtual tour. The designing process of the virtual tour of the Dresden University of Technology campus is explained in this work. The author spent his fifth year of his studies (1.10.2004 - 30.06.2005) at the Dresden University of Technology in Germany. The virtual tour of the Dresden University of Technology campus can be found in the
Internet: www.kwiatek.krakow.pl/panotour. In order to view all interactive panoramas one will need to install proper plug-ins that are mentioned on the webpage.

This study wishes to describe some of the key components of an art educational domain entitled ground<c>, which is being developed specifically for three dimensional online builder’s worlds, also called the metaverse. This undertaking takes its trajectory from ‘the Groundcourse’, a revolutionary art educational strategy, based on Cybernetics, developed and implemented in England during the 1960’s. A description of the Groundcourse’s learning strategies, as well as the underlying cybernetic principles will be undertaken. Approaches for adapting these founding theories, through a consideration of what the novel affordances of a three dimensional online builder’s world may bring to bear on such an endeavor, will also be deliberated upon.

Even though Córdoba is one of the most important historical cities in Europe, it has usually limited its heritage offer to the Cathedral-Mosque, and its immediate surroundings. To try to resolve this deficiency we have
proposed the “Cordoba in history” project. It consist in the creation of a network of interpretation centres strategically distributed to spread the historical knowledge of Cordoba to different areas of the city. “The Axerquía in time” has been a first pilot project to test some new technologies and their possibilities. This article explains the technical and historical criteria followed in its design, development and implementation.

The diversity of the artists' attitudes and actions as well as the multiplicity of the tools they were using triggered a steady and internally diversified process of changing the character of newly created installations. As a result, the concept of the art of installation, just like many other categories of contemporary art, lacks a homogeneous and unequivocal character. Looking at the contemporary works referred to by artists and critics as installations, we can in fact state that none of their classical attributes mentioned so far is obligatory for them today. The presence or absence of those features only makes it possible for us to identify the types of installations. For example, the close relation to a particular place, until today regarded by numerous theoreticians and critics as a defining feature of the art of installation, is now in fact only a feature of one of its types, referred to as site specific, or in situ installation. As for the other types, only the impermanence, ephemerality or temporality manifesting themselves in various ways can be considered to be a remnant, or a consequence of the original relation to some concrete space. After their presentation at the exhibition, such installations are dismantled and, when shown again in another gallery, they often take on a different form. Thus they occur in different shapes and formats, which means that they remain the same artwork only owing to the identity of their concept, idea or meaning. Installations of this type thus have sort of the character of a work in progress. Their ephemerality ultimately becomes, to some extend, a defining feature of each type of installation, achieving, as stated above, its maximum concentration only in the form of the installation in situ. This type of installation is characterised by an unbreakable, and yet unique, relation between the person (artist), the place and the time.

The paper accommodates Espen Aarseth’s concept of 'virtuality' and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s concept of 'suspension of disbelief' to the context of modern story forms. The primary focus will be on the videogame. The premise is that suspending disbelief at narrative improbabilities is a skill required to construct narrative coherence. Constructing narrative coherence of stories that contain virtual elements entails supplementary suspension of disbelief at virtual improbabilities, suspension of virtual disbelief. Since increasing the degree of virtuality often increases the requisite traversal effort, virtuality can be said to set increased demands on story traversal as well. This results in the dilemma of 'virtual balance:' while virtuality has the potential to strengthen diegesis, it on the other hand sets heightened demands on story traversal and narrative coherence. The concluding argument is that these heightened demands may be turned into rhetorical tools.

"As Georges Méliès discovered to his astonished glee in the late nineteenth century, moving pictures do more than just record reality—they create one. Through stop-trick substitutions, multiple exposures, and splices, celluloid becomes a portal translucent not only to the projector’s bulb, but to the projections of the fantastic. For Argentine writer Adolfo Bioy Casares, such cinematic sleights-of-hand become so compelling that they promise to substitute a special effect for all of reality itself. In his 1940 novel The Invention of Morel, Bioy Casares represents two dissociated worlds that, although temporally estranged, are spliced together spatially through layered technological projections—creating the illusion of two lovers immortalized in a virtual union, played back without end. This Borgesian splicing of virtual and actual demonstrates the fantastical possibilities—and tremendous manipulative power—of the splice and the image overlay. In so doing, Bioy Casares raises striking questions about our ability to embrace fantastical projections and attempt to achieve satisfaction from virtual liaisons."

This analysis paper provides a brief survey of the sector of computer game, application domains, technological demand and presently accessible resolution. It additionally presents the background and motivation of virtual surroundings analysis and identifies typical application domains. It additionally surveys current input/output devices of computer game.

This thesis presents a detailed case study analysis of three VR projects ‘Modigliani VR: The Ochre Atelier’ at the Tate Modern, ‘Jupiter Hall’ at the Hermitage Museum, and 'DigiMuse programme’ at the National Museum of Singapore in the context of museological trends and global market. Specifically, it lays the foundation for understanding and analysing the two aspects of this immersive technology: first, how VR applications in museums have fostered the development of partnerships between art and tech worlds which can be understood as a new collaborative ecosystem, and second, how this new type of advanced technological exhibitions can empower to capitalise on these partnership opportunities while achieving museum’s mission. Importantly, this new form of cooperation has an economic component which ensures value creation, in this case, for VR projects, whether in-house, online or in different hosting venues.
The attempt is to integrate the findings to demonstrate how VR technology can become a new channel to achieve museum’s objectives while remaining relevant and sustainable, and suggest a list of important factors to consider for an effective use of VR in museum practice. The present research aims at addressing the gap in the current academic literature by providing an analysis of VR in museum practices, in order to guide future designs of museum VR exhibitions. The thesis provides a solid foundation for further studies of this new collaborative ecosystem between the cultural and technological worlds.

This chapter examines digital virtual environments as a site for art and proposes a formal aesthetics for art in digital virtual environments. The study arises from the author's decades-long practice producing art in virtual environments and the related theoretical considerations that have arisen from that practice. The technical, conceptual and ontological status of virtual environments is examined in order to establish a base of intrinsic qualities that identify virtual environments as a medium for art. The philosophy of Gilbert Simondon is used to achieve this. The elements and principles the artist must employ to work with this medium are identified as data, display and modulation. The specificities of virtual environments as a medium for art are examined in order to establish a formal aesthetics. In particular, digital colour, visual opacity, digital sound, code, artificial intelligence, emergence and agency are identified as the primary qualities that the artist manipulates to bring forth art in a virtual environment. Draft for chapter published in "New Opportunities for for Artistic Practice in Virtual Worlds", 2015.

This paper considers the experience of embodiment in current and (possible) future virtual reality applications. A phenomenological perspective is adopted to explore user embodiment in those virtual reality applications that both do and do not include a visual body (re)presentation (virtual body). Embodiment is viewed from the perspective ofsensorial immersion, 'where issues of gender, race, and culture are all implicated. Accounts of "disrupted" bodies (for example, phantom limb and dissociation of the self from the body, paralysis, and objectified bodies) are advanced in order to provide a context for understanding the ways in which embodiment in virtual reality environments may be instantiated. The explicit claim that virtual reality is an embodied experience and can facilitate the radical transfiguration of the body and its sensorial architecture is explored and evaluated.

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Today, virtual reality is becoming ubiquitous and tremendous trends. Ubiquitous virtual reality (uVR) realizes virtual reality on ubiquitous smart space. In this platform, u-Content has been introduced as a new kind of realism that will realistically mediate real space. To go beyond the boundary of virtuality, pervasive virtuality has been introduced as a better fusion of reality and virtuality that will enhance visualization of virtual environments towards what is considered as the 'true' virtual reality. This paper addresses the state-of-the-art of uVR by deciphering its definition, dimensions and features, the concept of pervasive virtuality and its characters, as well as a case study on intelligent machine space, called DIGILOG space.

La imagen-espejo posmoderna es una forma de representación autorreferencial que encuentra su origen remoto en el pop art y el arte conceptual, y cuyo influjo es esencial en el cine de fin de siglo: intertextualidad, apropiacionismo, cultura de masas, fractura del relato, desmaterializacion del personaje. Como reaccion a esta imagen-espejo, una serie de movimientos cinematográficos coetaneos tratan de recuperar la conexión con la imagen-realidad. Proponemos una lectura del cine contemporáneo como un debate entre estos dos modos de representacion, paralelo al desarrollo de la sociedad de la imagen y los formatos digitales. |

«Mirror image: iconicism and reality in late cinema». Postmodern mirror-image, as a self-referential structure of representation,  finds its roots in pop-art and conceptual art. It has deeply influenced late cinema: intertextuality, appropriationism, mass culture, broken narrative and disintegrated personality. In opposition to this mirror-image cinema, coetaneous films are struggling to restore the conection between image and reality. This paper offers a reading of contemporary cinema as a battlefield where debate on representation comes to be staged, while the society of spectacle and digital formats expand across the world.

Post-conceptual art is that contemporary art that builds upon the legacy of Conceptual Art, where the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Post-conceptual art has been traced to the work of Robert Smithson, 1 and the intermedia concept employed in the mid-sixties by Fluxus artist Dick Higgins, 2 but is now more often connected to digital art production, 3 where the computer code sets the conceptual rules for a physical production. I have identified this postconvergent and post-conceptual trend in 1999 as: viractuality. 4 5 Conceptual Art focused attention on the idea behind the art object and questioned the traditional role of that object as the conveyor of meaning. Subsequently, those theories cast doubt upon the necessity of materiality itself as conceptual artists "de-materialized" the postminimal art object and began to produce time-based and ephemeral artworks.

The will to experiment architectural design processes on a virtual space is the main feature of this project; in this case the typology of museums has been adopted to investigate the potential of virtual reality on architectural visualization. Its particle structure allows to host a multitude of different collections (3D digital arts, 3D model reconstructions…) and each one of them can be modified or increased during time thank to the flexibility and dynamic state of the museum. It could be seen as a "never-ending" project, or a continuously growing museum. In this contribution it will be presented the first collection prototype, created from the tridimensional reconstruction of some of, as they're called, visionary architectures: it's a selection of works, from 19th century to today, born "on paper" and never built. The aim of the first collection project is to experiment a different kind of approach in the field of historical "paper architectures", trying to increase their value and their suggestive nature and sharing it through the museum structure. Basically the project gives this works the third dimension and through augmented reality allows them to be explored as a building inside a virtual world in which they don't have to deal with technical issues, and in which creativity can take place as in their authors' mind.

‘Seventh Ray’ is a Mixed Reality (MR) platform inspired by Mystery School initiation techniques of the ancient world. The platform employs the latest in perceptual and sensory augmentation technologies to explore the meaning and modern day significance of these ancient ceremonies. The historic texts provide a formula and the new technologies provide the tools to revive these rites into previously unimaginable formulations. The Seventh Ray seeks to explore the combined power of drama with the particular state of awareness one feels when they fully inhabit a mixed reality. Might the MR brain exhibit closer parallels with the ‘book reading brain’ than that of the ‘movie watching’ one? The ancient texts give us a formula; the emerging technologies of VR and AR give us the tools to revive these ancient rites into unimaginable dimensions.

In this text I wish to delve into the creation of textual content as well as its visualization through typographic design mechanisms inside three dimensional virtual worlds, which are known as the metaverse. I am particularly focused upon the way in which such virtually three dimensional environments may place the usage of text within a context that stands in contradiction to its traditional one by creating an unexpected novel purpose which takes a marked departure from the intrinsic attribute with which text has inherently been associated – namely the attribute of readability. In such environments readability, or indeed even legibility, may often be displaced through the usage of text and typography as a playful device, as artifacts which may manifest in puzzle-like configurations, or as visual structures the contents of which are meant to be understood through means other than straightforward reading; thus bringing about states of heightened engagement, wonder and ‘play’ through their manipulation or indeed simply by being immersed within the spaces which are brought about through their very agency. I also wish to expand upon this subject by talking about my own experiments with this material and will conclude by positing that further virtual dimensions can be instrumental in eliciting exciting alternative usages of text and typography which bring to the fore the allographic properties of text as an artistic/creative expressive media that may well bear further scrutiny and exploration.

Since the late nineteenth century, the introduction and use of cameras in anthropological research has been a real revolution. Thanks to these tools, it was possible to record interviews, traditions, rituals and customs belonging to hundreds of different people located around the world. This digital storage depot represents an enormous resource for the conservation of intangible heritage, revealing itself as a veritable mine for researchers. Currently, thanks to the continuous and rapid technological development, it is possible to memorize in a more effective and complete way the scene, using, for example, VR cameras that allow recording in virtual reality. These tools allow you to detect 360 ° what lies around the registration point. The video produced in this way, displayed through the use of specific viewers, allows a real virtual immersion in the middle of the scene. In this way, for example, it is possible to "meet" within a ceremonial rite, a religious procession, to attend simple moments of life or an interview. The VR recording has several advantages, as it allows a technically wider recording than the classic video recording. Thus, it is a more effective tool for the anthropologist as it allows him to experience the experience in the first person. In this contribution we will show how much just asserted through some applications on certain case studies in Basilicata, the "magical" land of Ernesto de Martino.

Course Description: This course investigates the use of three-dimensional virtual media in museum, gallery, and online exhibition contexts, with an emphasis on Virtual Reality (VR). This course prepares students both practically and conceptually to work with 3D virtual media in professional contexts of the artworld, especially in museums, art galleries, and online exhibition contexts. It provides students with an understanding of 3D virtual media technology today and the directions it may take in the future, and trains them to think critically about its most effective usage, especially in museum environments.

In this article I propose an approach to a new model of audiovisual representation call virtual playful (MRVL). For this, I rely in part on modeling that focuses on Hollywood cinema, proposed by Jesús González Requena. But, because the object of study I propose is more comprehensive, as it covers various audiovisual media beyond the cinema as deduced from the corpus of work chosen-the Youtube platform, the videogame Stalker and the music video Dancing Anymore - I refer also to other theories and modeling that come from the called game studies. The problem with these studies is that, in general, do
not focus on the substance of the narrative experiences (of which the MRVL assumed its contemporary approach): the emotion and experience of the desire on the part of the
viewer (or better would be called user) through a symbolic horizon full of significance. From this base, I reflect on the type of user who draws this MRVL, for which I have taken the concept of Virtual Self proposed by Ben Agger. For this it would be a person connected to the world through the technological interface; but I redefine it as a user experience that would live within this MRVL that would prevail in a strong narcissism and that, therefore, conclude in an experience empty of sense.

With  a  £5  Google  Cardboard  and  a  cell  phone,  everyone  can  live  a  360° immersive experience. Youtube provides a huge amount of content, professional or private. Blockbusters like Starwars, groups like Gorillaz post their latest film in 360 Vr format to literally plunge the audience into their worlds of images and sounds. 360° photos are now accessible with a single click at a reasonable price. In museums like Stonehenge or Museum Victoria in Melbourne, cylinder screens offer a collective experience, with a one to one scaled image.
What seems to be a state of the art technology is in fact 230 years old. Everything started  in  1787  in  Edinburgh  when  Robert  Barker  (1739/1806)  painted  the  first panorama. Barker did not just invent the 360° image, but also the scenography that makes the illusion perfect. The first patent was granted by American engineer Robert Fulton (1765/1815) in 1799 1 . It refers to “a circular picture without boundaries” but also describes the architecture, the position of the viewers, the way to get in and out.
Between the end of the 18 th  century and the beginning of the 20 th , panoramas were very successful and huge buildings were made such as the London Colosseum built in 1827 or the Hittorff’s “Rotonde des panoramas pour les Champs-Élysées” in 1842.
The London Colosseum was also stated as a landmark and a belvedere.It is a common thought that cinema killed panoramas. It is partially true. At the dawn  of  the  20 th  century,  most  panoramas  closed,  were  destroyed  or  transformed. The memory of their greatness faded away. A very few remained until a late rebirth with  digital  techniques.  But  in  fact,  the  idea  of  an  immersive  panoramic  view  has still being developed and improve over time. The Occulus Rift or HTC Vive can be considered of the heirs of panoramas. In the article, we will follow those evolutions and transformations from panoramas to VR.