RealityMedia: immersive technology and narrative space

This paper explores narratives through a wider community having access to technology, which provides instantaneous positioning and real time information; this has led to breaking of boundaries enabling mapping and user interactions to expand these narratives into enhanced immersive experiences. I explore these narratives through specific user interactions of augmented reality, or as I adopt augmented spaces, Manovich (2002). Then I describe how they become egocentric subjective narratives, Nold & Boyd-Davis (2009) providing a totality view of an environment allowing a user to “enter it”, Grau (2003). I explain how these egocentric subjective narratives can potentially be enriched through real time externalising of self using biometric data and how they could influence the user’s behaviour through a qualculative sense, Thrift (2004) as well as helping improve well being. I progress to examine narratives that are explored through future wearable computer prostheses and discuss potential narratives relating them to how they could enhance immersion for an electronomad, (Matsuda, 2010) user in the environment with feelings of joy and satisfaction. I then relate these overall ideas to those of hyperreality and examine how they could serve to build what Bachelard (1958) calls a “poetic image”, a space within a dwelling to which users can use for escaping to a daydream, or a connection to the real world and that of a fantasy or a dream.

2008

his paper explores how traditional narrative language used in film and theatre can be adapted to create interactivity and a greater sense of presence in the virtual heritage environment. It focuses on the fundamental principles of narrative required to create immersion and presence and investigates methods of embedding intangible social histories into these environments. These issues are explored in a case study of Greens Mill in the 1830's, interweaving the story of the reform bill riots in Nottingham with the life of George Green, mathematician and proprietor of the Mill.

Proceedings of the 4th Media Architecture Biennale Conference

In this paper we report on studies we conducted focusing on the use of Augmented Reality to annotate real sites with relevant archival content. This is an interdisciplinary study of novel interactive technologies and supportive platforms such as geolocation-navigation and contextual digital augmentation of archival material in public spaces. We involved community volunteers, experts and public in a participatory heritage initiative. We designed an experience that supported a multi-platform participation, via an online geo-tagging portal and a mixed reality navigational experience. In an iterative design process we explored the use and preference of mobile devices, the controlled design of digital content anchored to real sites and the use of AR to support urban narratives. We did this by conducting a series of user walkthroughs with recruited participants and workshops with local experts related to the case studies. In this paper we argue on the importance of situating urban experience of digital archives and stories in the actual locations of the events they represent as to better support immersion, enhance place experience and reinforce situated learning. Our work contributes to the design of hybrid spatialities and experiences in urban space that relate to local memory and culture.

This thesis investigates the creation of site-specific augmented reality (AR) narratives . AR is a complex medium comprised of both physical and virtual worlds, employing a screen space where the two are synthesized. As a nascent technology, the methods and language for the creation of AR content are still developing. This paper analyzes elements that come into play when creating an AR narrative, including learned behaviours within specific architectural zones. I consider architecture as a medium and frame for AR narrative, as architecture engages with the mobile device and screen where the story unfolds. My research is informed by different disciplines and theories, including the concept of the architectural fold introduced by Bernard Cache and Elizabeth Grosz. Through the fold, virtual architecture interrupts physical space by annexing it into a new form. My research also applies cinematic language as a means to articulate the on-screen story, and to apply the concept of montage to physical space in real time. All of these elements and concepts inform Homunculus, an AR Narrative in the Gladstone Hotel.

Imago. Studi di cinema e media No. 22/2020, 2021

In which aspects and to what extent can one regard as “narrative” the spatial experience provided by a museum route, a urban building, a multimedia interactive environment, or an immersive videogame? Under which conditions may spatiality be constitutive of a narratively organized interactive experience? What are the relationships between a represented pictorial space and a designed material space, when their narrative roles are taken into account? And what are the socio-cultural or political implications of the mediated interactions between individuals and environments? Taken together, the possible answers to such questions allow us to grasp some specific features of contemporary media experience, which is broadly characterized by a special emphasis on the articulations between bodily interactions, spatial constructs, and technological innervations. At the same time, the distinctive features of contemporary media experience – irrespective of whether they take place in everyday, entertainment or artistic environments – allow us to rethink on a general theoretical level issues of narrativity, interaction, or immersion. This special section of Imago (No. 22/2021) aims at investigating the narrative configurations which emerge from the interaction between bodies, spaces, and technologies in contemporary media experiences. More specifically, it addresses the projects which prefocus and orient those experiences, and the forms they assume depending on the medium which is taken under consideration.

2020

The immersive work titled Story/Space explores the relationship of setting and story through the technology of virtual reality by creating a participatory experience in digital spaces that recounts a childhood memory. The work proposes a new perspective on the role of the scene in an agency-driven narrative, one that considers the affordances of virtual reality to expand narrative possibilities through a sense of presence and immersion. Through the design of key elements-sound, interaction and visual detail-that are focused on creating presence, the spaces themselves become storytellers. The result is an experience co-authored by artist and immersant that interactively moves through the wonders of a world inspired by childhood imagination, reconciling youthful abandon with mature perspective and insight. v List of Abbreviations VR Virtual Reality AR Augmented Reality XR Extended reality or "X" reality MR Mixed Reality HMD Head mounted display DOF Degrees of freedom

This paper explores how traditional narrative language used in film and theatre can be adapted to create interactivity and a greater sense of presence in the virtual heritage environment. It focuses on the fundamental principles of narrative required to create immersion and presence and investigates methods of embedding intangible social histories into these environments. These issues are explored in a case study of Greens Mill in the 1830's, interweaving the story of the reform bill riots in Nottingham with the life of George Green, mathematician and proprietor of the Mill.

2021

Technology-driven design can support the creation of storytelling experiences that offer innovative ways of transmitting knowledge and information. New technologies also have emerged as tools for making art relevant again and making museums and art galleries hybrid places in which the virtual and digital aspects of stories are combined with corresponding physical artefacts. Observing people’s reactions and behaviors in those hybrid environments requires the examination of ways in which they engage with space in the process of meaning-making by changing and adapting the space to suit their means. Even though differentiation of the concepts of space is broadly explored in the literature, in the context of mixed reality experience design has become hazy again. In our work, we explore practitioner’s view on the ontological issues with defining experience space and discuss its in-betweenness, inseparability and unrealness.

Computing, 2001

Since 2014, a new wave of Virtual Reality (VR) development has been on the rise, calling for more artists to utilize this new technology in creating art works. However, there is still room for improvement in both the technology itself and its application in art creations. Firstly, the lack of clear definitions in VR results in many problems. Usually, the term 'VR creators' is used to address all of VR game producers, 360 filmmakers, and VR experience designers. This prevents the 'creators' from clearly defining the realm of their roles, thus the communication between them becomes less efficient. This inefficiency in turn prohibits the establishment of design patterns, forcing artists to acquire technical skills. This, in most cases, intensifies the difficulty of transdisciplinary collaborations, which are usually seen in big-budget projects promoted by big companies or famous studios. Due to the hybrid nature of this new medium, the outcome of the artwork is hard to predict. Participants' experiences can vary widely based on their decoding performance. What is more, there is a big chance that the work will not receive credit as artworks but will be criticized as frivolous toys. This paper builds on my experience of creating a thesis project, Captive Memoirs, in which I explore the multiple dimensions of designing an VR experience. Starting from the theoretical study and analysis of various artworks, I attempt to define, for further reference, the design elements that a VR experience is composed of. Through the presentation of this thesis, an operational system is established that investigates the design conventions of VR experience. This work also examines the relationship between the audience and the interactive art installation to investigate why the audiences' interaction is the key to VR experience. Above all, rethinking the creative practice of VR based artworks reveals the inspiration for new art forms and creates the opportunity to question the new standards of art.