Immersion (virtual reality)

Immersion is the state of consciousness where an immersant's awareness of physical self is diminished or lost by being surrounded in an engrossing total environment; often artificial. ["Immersive Ideals / Critical Distances", Joseph Nechvatal 1999 Planetary Collegium] This state is frequently accompanied by spatial excess, intense focus, a distorted sense of time, and effortless action.cite web | last =Varney | first =Allen | title =Immersion Unexplained | publisher =The Escapist | url = http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/57/19 | format =HTML | date=August 8, 2006| accessdate = 2007-04-06 ] The term is widely used to describe immersive virtual reality, installation art and video games, but it is not clear if people are using the same word consistently. The term is also cited as a frequently-used buzzword, in which case its meaning is intentionally vague, but carries the connotation of being particularly engrossing.

The sensation of total immersion in virtual reality (VR) can be so described: "You lose your critical distance to the experience and get emotionally involved. It could be not only a game you are a part of, but any kind of experience. ... You feel as if it is very real but know it is not." Interactive computer art first became a compositional art medium when Myron Krueger made "videoplace" (1970). Visitors could enter a computer-generated graphic world, interact with other participants of both human and creature form. This full-body, telecommunication computer experience was the first of its kind. Krueger also coined the term "artificial reality". [cite book|last=Popper|first=Frank|title=From Technological to Virtual Art|publisher=The MIT Press|2007|isbn=026216230X]

Types of immersion

[
Virtual reality HMD] According to Ernest Adams, author and consulter on game design, immersion can be separated into three main categories:

;Tactical immersion:Tactical immersion is experienced when performing tactile operations that involve skill. Players feel "in the zone" while perfecting actions that result in success.

;Strategic immersion:Strategic immersion is more cerebral, and is associated with mental challenge. Chess players experience strategic immersion when choosing a correct solution among a broad array of possibilities.

;Narrative immersion:Narrative immersion occurs when players become invested in a story, and is similar to what is experienced while reading a book or watching a movie.

Staffan Björk and Jussi Holopainen, in "Patterns In Game Design", divide immersion into similar categories, but call them sensory-motoric immersion, cognitive immersion and emotional immersion, respectively. In addition, they add two new categories:

;Spatial immersion:Spatial immersion occurs when a player feels the simulated world is perceptually convincing. The player feels that he or she is really "there" and that a simulated world looks and feels "real".

;Psychological immersion:Psychological immersion occurs when a player confuses the game with real life.

;Sensory immersion:The experience of entering into the three-dimensional environment, and being intellectually stimulated by it. The player experiences a unity of time and space as the player fuses with the image medium, which affects impression and awareness.

ee also

*Immersive digital environment
*Immersive reality gaming
*Immersive virtual reality
*Conceptual art
*Environmental sculpture
*Cave Automatic Virtual Environment
*Interactive art
*Modern art
*Neo-conceptual art
*Performance art
*Street installations
*Video installation
*Sound installation
*Sound art

References

*cite web | last =Adams | first =Ernest | title =Postmodernism and the Three Types of Immersion | publisher =Gamasutra | date =July 9, 2004 | url =http://designersnotebook.com/Columns/063_Postmodernism/063_postmodernism.htm | format =HTML | accessdate =2007-12-26
*cite book | last =Björk | first =Staffan | coauthors =Jussi Holopainen | title =Patterns In Game Design | publisher =Charles River Media | date =2004 | pages =423 | url =http://books.google.com/books?id=IFQfyODK4wAC | isbn =1584503548
* [http://www.eyewithwings.net/nechvatal/ideals.htm Immersive Ideals / Critical Distances : A Study of the Affinity Between Artistic Ideologies Based in Virtual Reality and Previous Immersive Idioms] by Joseph Nechvatal 1999 Planetary Collegium
* Oliver Grau, "Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion" MIT-Press, Cambridge 2003
* Allen Varney, (August 8, 2006). "Immersion Unexplained" in "The Escapist"
* Frank Popper, "From Technological to Virtual Art", MIT Press. ISBN 026216230X.
* Oliver Grau (Ed.): "Media Art Histories", MIT-Press, Cambridge 2007
* Joseph Nechvatal, "Immersive Excess in the Apse of Lascaux", Technonoetic Arts 3, no3. 2005

External links

* [http://press.nokia.com/PR/200505/994772_5.html N-Gage At E3 Showcases Immersive Games And Next-Generation Mobile Gaming] - example of the term being used as a buzzword.
* [http://www.eyewithwings.net/nechvatal/ideals.htm Immersive Ideals / Critical Distances : A Study of the Affinity Between Artistic Ideologies Based in Virtual Reality and Previous Immersive Idioms] by Dr. Joseph Nechvatal