Response 1 to Gabe Walford on Frances Dyson’s Sounding New Media

After leading last Thursday’s in class discussion, Gabe proposed the question: In Davies artwork we are immersed through an aural state into a world of transparent substance and form, but is such a space or optic sensation needed to be immersed in this world? To me, this is a fairly loaded question in two ways. First, what does it mean to be or experience to total immersion and second, is space or optic sensation needed to be immersed.
  

What does it mean to be or experience total immersion? There are many different levels of immersion one can experience, especially with in the world of technology and digital media.  Many of these different states or levels of immersion were discussed in class as a group, and as I stated then, I fell strongly that total immersion within a digital/virtual realm or object is simply not possible.  It is likely that we may only experience partial immersion in our life times that in fact, total immersion may be out of the question entirely.  To be totally immersed one would have to lose all sense or cognition of the physical world around them.  Thus becoming completely enveloped by the environment or object in which they are interacting with. When I look at Davis’ work, it is clearly illustrated that although she strives for the viewer to reach a state of total immersion in her Virtual Reality, the actions of navigating and “being” within it only make the user more aware of their own “physical being”.  For those of us who have ever worn a VR headset, you will remember how it is impossible to not be constantly reminded of its presence and the physical impact it has on you the entire time one wears it.

Additionally, in order to interact with the environment one wears gloves that allows for movement and interaction within the VR.  These gloves are typically connected to the headset and as you “explore” the environment you can still physically feel the tug and chaining effect cause by the data cables (granted it is possible for a VR system/unit in this day and age to be complete wireless with the technological advancements that have been made, knowing this however, it begs the question: when was the last time you saw or heard of the use of a VR system in mainstream media?).  I understand that Davis attempted to neutralize these conventions by using multiple/additional apparatuses and devices in an attempt strive for complete embodiment.  As described by Dyson:

Although some have responded to the ocularcentric basis of VR by extending the means for sensory interactivity (based on the assumption that once all senses are represented then immersion will be more realistic-so realistic in fact that the experience becomes "real" rather than "virtual"), Davies has attempted to move away from the visual by incorporating the breath and body balance into the navigational system, rather than relying on the relatively crude interface of the data glove… The focus here is on embodiment-seen as the total body, rather than the body as a point of view determined by the eye/hand and head. Using breath to move up and down in the virtual environment, and balance to move left and right, the design of Osmose was intended to counter the frontality of vision with a sense of movement within enveloping space. (pp. 112-113)

Yet even Dyson herself recalls the clunky and inertness caused by the vest of Osmose, which one can only draw the conclusion that it would be a physical impossibility to not be aware of outside technology used to bring about embodiment and immersion.  In order to be fully immersed one would have to become an inert object, with a loss of all motor skills and senses in the physical realm and thus experiencing senses, movement and control in a metaphysical way controlled by one’s brain power ( http://bit.ly/yMWPq8 ). 

Is space or optic sensation needed to be immersed in this (VR) world?  To me, the question relates only to partial immersion into a digital medium while within our own physical realm.  Our senses of space, touch, vision and hearing allow for our physical being to become immersed within an experience or environment.  It is through a human’s senses that allows for that individual to perceive and experience emotion in both a real and virtual environment.  If one could not see the happenings of a new environment how would they know that they are experiencing it?  Likewise, if one could not hear the happenings or feel the presence of the objects and happenings wouldn’t the same be true?  I know it seems simple but in understanding what it truly means to be immersed, one’s senses must also be transformed by the experience in order for that experience to be perceived and “felt” by the individual.

             

After reading the chapter, Gabe’s take on it and our in class discussion I guess the following questions still linger:

-First will partial immersion ever become so powerful and encompassing that it allows for the beauty and natural of our physical world to become mundane or disinteresting?

-Second, with the idea of perfection becoming (somewhat) attainable in a VR, if a state of total immersion becomes possible someday will it have a draw, for those who it seek it, to enter a realm completely with out the imperfections or shortcomings of their physical existence? 

-Third, is it then beneficial to experience a  world where the pains, hardships and inevitable truths of “real” life do not exist and allows for complete escapism from life as we know it?

Media Objects:

http://hvrd.me/c6s2kt

An interesting article on the impact digital immersion and technology will have on journalism in the near future (via Nieman Reports online).  Illustrating the possibilities of a realm where information within an interactive environment is fully possible.

http://bit.ly/zMroWt

A video showing advancements in Augmented Reality (what some will say Virtual Reality has become) and its uses.  Through this medium I personally find immersion more possible and interesting.

http://bit.ly/y1cveU
A video for an iOS game that you solely navigate with the sound of your voice.  Inspiration was derived from Dyson's book Sounding New Media.

Gabe Walford on Frances Dyson, Sounding New Media

In Davies’s aesthetic, the transparency of images is intended to evoke a sense of sheer existence in objects – these objects are, like Cage’s ashtray, both vital and vibrating. Viewing objects through a lack of sight – through the myopia that Davies has lived with for much of her life – is the act of viewing them in a vibratory sense. And indeed Davies describes the luminosities she sees in her field of (myopic) vision as “flowing” and “pulsing.”
- Frances Dyson, Sounding New Media (2009: 127).

The aesthetic of Char Davies’s work is of particular interest to the discussion of ‘immersion’ in that her critics argue that the sense of touch is critical of true immersion, but they fail to comprehend the more abstract substance within her work. To unpack this segment, we must examine the materiality of the forms within her work and what allows them to possess a substance/being to the “immersant”. Through the aural nature of her VR works the comparison made to John Cage and the Pepsi-Cola Pavilion is fitting, if not divisive, in emphasizing the relationship between the viewer, the work/environment, and the state of being within it. For Cage the interest in reality was one found in an objects inner vibrations, or inner life, allowing for the object to be “knowable” with it’s own sentience and desire (Dyson, 143). Related back to Davies’s ‘transparency of images’ we explore an object through a world in flux and enveloped in aurality, or one of “flowing” and “pulsing” as seen through her myopic vision. This abstraction of sight relates to her own philosophies, and as Merleau-Ponty points out, separates the subject from an object “which is no longer an ‘object’ as such” (Dyson, 120). Building from this, the distortion of an object into something more malleable and transparent to the eye, and conveying something more at it’s core as Cage sought through an object’s vibrations. These transparent forms push further though, relating to the breath which the viewer is made aware of from their movement, establishing a greater relationship through the vibrations from breath to the voice, as the aurality of the object is to it’s transparency. We are peering through the transparent image and understanding it for it’s “inner being” by way of it’s aural quality, and experiencing it in the flux of Davies myopia.

The power of breath within the piece holds the greatest explanation to the understanding of immersion for a participant. Rooting herself deep in a history of philosophy to the relationship of breath to the voice, Davies is able to relate the viewer through their own physicality to the virtual world by way of the aural nature surrounding them. With the head phones set and the 3D sound as guide, the immersant navigates the new world by the force of their own respiration, and becomes a “pulsing” being of their own. The audio which they experience heightens the awareness of space as different qualities may come from different locations and guide you to discover other forms. This awareness of space through the aurality, and it’s use of the participants breath make one more conscious of their own being, as Merleau-Ponty describes the “being [is] no longer before me, but surrounding me and in a sense traversing me” (Dyson, 120). The world surrounding us pulses and breaths on it’s own and a pursuit is made towards understanding our place within and the more temporality of nature as the piece move through different sections, which Davies designed as seasons (http://bit.ly/vO4QYt). Dyson describes in relation to one’s breath and balance as being more aware of “perceptual and physical modalities based on sound and listening more than materiality and sight” (Dyson, 121).

Immersion as an idea is interesting in the larger framework of digital but also in the world of art. Through the experience conveyed within this artwork one is able to be immersed in a way much of art through history has only dreamed to provide to it’s participants / viewers. The experience as a state of being and aural relationship of our breath to the other forms becomes one where we are more aware of our own physicality. We are enchanted by this alterity, but through the experience become certainly more aware of our own breath and balance, and the headset atop our head. We are unable to affect this other world while our physicality and epistemic knowledge of the real might become even heightened. This brings into play Merleau-Ponty’s idea of “hyper-reflexion,” where we are initially concerned with understanding the solidity of a form through it’s aural nature, we become more aware of our own body and that even while being apart of this space we are not separate from the reality outside of us.

For Davies critics, the idea of immersion becomes a question as to what causes immersion and the logical equation of understanding the event of entering it’s state. This being the debate of whether such a condition is the result of touch and sight within space, or if it is brought on through a surrounding aural environment. In Davies artwork we are immersed through an aural state into a world of transparent substance and form, but is such a space or optic sensation needed to be immersed in this world? In more recent times, there has been the question of the possibility of aural drugs, and if certain audio pieces can cause the feeling many experience while intoxicated by chemical substance.

This was brought to the attention of popular culture through certain electronic songs that clammed to be able to put a listener into a high if listened to with headphones. The concept being that if the listener immersed themselves in certain aural vibrations which have a binaural beat it would heighten the activity within their brain causing the desired state. Dubbed iDosing, it was quickly across the internet and documented through youtube with teens calming to have been immersed in ecstasy provided by varying songs – just as quickly the media followed raising the concern that if someone would listen to these songs to experience a high it might be a gateway to much more serious real world activities (http://bit.ly/crPOeo).



As it turns out, such binaural beats were developed in 1839, and are a tool used in psychological therapy to help with such things as sleeping disorders and anxiety. The aural stimuli is the reaction of a listener / immersant hearing a beat at two different frequencies between each ear, and the brain perceives the sound at a much quicker pace. It is also said that much of the high that it is considered to induce is fictitious and pushed along by hype as it may be a self fulfilling expectation, and can even be found in the sleeping aids you might purchase at a mall (http://bit.ly/aGQIe0).

It is interesting though to consider the idea of entering an immersed state or actively trying to enter an alterity through a strictly aural method is found as a popular phenomenon. If a listener does actually become immersed in the process it would seem that touch and sight would not be a need. Whether or not that is for the result of a perceived high reminds us of what Davies’s participants wrote within the guest books of her gallery exhibitions stating they had felt a sort of heighten or different emotional state and anxiety . While the perceptual may help, and is certainly interesting to examine for those less imaginative, this may show in Davies VR works that the aural quality does in fact immerse the participant by enwrapping them in the sounds. This of course can be argued against and that the immersion might be just that self-fulfilling expectation, yet conversely that someone who does not experience such a feeling may simply be expecting not to and is focused to much on the materiality around them.

For Davies, if her work truly has the intention of immersing someone to become more conscious of their being and bringing them full circle to feel more conscious of their being in reality. Then it could also be said it is result of same process for someone who does not become immersed, and in a shallower sense, is thinking very much of their being in reality. It is an abstract state, and the history of art criticism is riddled with those who do not understand an abstraction, which Dyson is sure to emphasize is not an out of body immersion/experience as dreamed by so many in the new media field. It is however, a close examination of the aurality surrounding us found through the abstraction that Davies’s myopia puts upon her, and one where she takes one step closer toward what Cage thought of to be an objects sentience found in the vibrations.

Further links to the VR work of Char Davies:
Ephémère - http://www.immersence.com/ephemere/index.php
Osmose - http://www.immersence.com/osmose/