Radical Immersions: navigating between virtual / physical environments and information bubbles

Contributors: Susan Broadhurst, Elena Papadaki, Dani Ploeger, Michael Goddard, Sarah O'Brien, Olu Taiwo, Andreas Schellewald, Melanie Chan, Matt Lewis, Vince Dziekan, Gabriella Giannachi, Livia Nolasco-Roszas, Zsolt Bagi, Carly Whittaker, Einav Katan-Schmid, Romana Mosse, Christian Stein, Raivo Kelomees, Christian Riegel, Katherine Robinson, Rosell Meseguer, Candida Borges, Joseph De Lappe, Raquel Caerols Mateo, Grayson Richards, Julia Scott-Stevenson, John Desnoyers-Stewart, Eleanor Dare, Alexander Oliszewsi, Vita Berezina-Blackburn, Dan Barnard and Conor McGarrigle.

Over the past years, immersive technologies have been hyped as consumer gadgets, entertainment media and the future of exhibition practices. The free distribution of VR headsets with smartphones and the increasing interest of museums, festivals and other cultural organisers towards 'immersive digital content' have quickly turned VR and AR devices and applications into widely recognized cultural artefacts. The promotion of 'full immersion' in the physical spaces of exhibitions and museums has led to some venues relying solely on interactive projections and audience interaction. However, just like many earlier 'new media' before them, the hyperbolic promises attached to these technologies' supposed capacity to deliver immediacy and trigger a paradigm shift in media culture have thus far hardly become reality.

Meanwhile, social media platforms enable the formation of communities where members immerse themselves in alternate networks of signification in which conspiracy theories are embedded in seemingly consistent information clouds. While these information bubbles are often - but not necessarily correctly - associated with economically and socially disenchanted communities that reject intellectualism, they can also be read as reflections of some of the keystones of post-structuralist thought, especially in their fostering of a rhizomatic approach to 'fact finding' and a consistent suspicion that the everyday is in fact a 'hyperreal' constructed by entities of power.

The Digital Research in the Humanities and Arts (DRHA) conference 2019 examines these two perspectives on immersion in digital culture, and aims to identify some of their broader ideological frameworks as well as develop detailed insights into the workings of specific technologies in relation to their promises.
 
Contributors: Susan Broadhurst, Elena Papadaki, Dani Ploeger, Michael Goddard, Sarah O'Brien, Olu Taiwo, Andreas Schellewald, Melanie Chan, Matt Lewis, Vince Dziekan, Gabriella Giannachi, Livia Nolasco-Roszas, Zsolt Bagi, Carly Whittaker, Einav Katan-Schmid, Romana Mosse, Christian Stein, Raivo Kelomees, Christian Riegel, Katherine Robinson, Rosell Meseguer, Candida Borges, Joseph De Lappe, Raquel Caerols Mateo, Grayson Richards, Julia Scott-Stevenson, John Desnoyers-Stewart, Eleanor Dare, Alexander Oliszewsi, Vita Berezina-Blackburn, Dan Barnard and Conor McGarrigle.

Over the past years, immersive technologies have been hyped as consumer gadgets, entertainment media and the future of exhibition practices. The free distribution of VR headsets with smartphones and the increasing interest of museums, festivals and other cultural organisers towards 'immersive digital content' have quickly turned VR and AR devices and applications into widely recognized cultural artefacts. The promotion of 'full immersion' in the physical spaces of exhibitions and museums has led to some venues relying solely on interactive projections and audience interaction. However, just like many earlier 'new media' before them, the hyperbolic promises attached to these technologies' supposed capacity to deliver immediacy and trigger a paradigm shift in media culture have thus far hardly become reality.

Meanwhile, social media platforms enable the formation of communities where members immerse themselves in alternate networks of signification in which conspiracy theories are embedded in seemingly consistent information clouds. While these information bubbles are often - but not necessarily correctly - associated with economically and socially disenchanted communities that reject intellectualism, they can also be read as reflections of some of the keystones of post-structuralist thought, especially in their fostering of a rhizomatic approach to 'fact finding' and a consistent suspicion that the everyday is in fact a 'hyperreal' constructed by entities of power.

The Digital Research in the Humanities and Arts (DRHA) conference 2019 examines these two perspectives on immersion in digital culture, and aims to identify some of their broader ideological frameworks as well as develop detailed insights into the workings of specific technologies in relation to their promises.