Mixing realities: reflections on presence and embodiment in intermedial performance design of Blue Hour VR

ABSTRACT

Created for the 2019 Prague Quadrennial’s 36Q°, Blue Hour VR was a site-responsive mixed reality performative installation that placed the spectator, as experiencer, within a hybrid landscape of real-time three-dimensional computer graphics and 360-degree video. This article describes the design process, staging and experience of Blue Hour VR from the vantage point of its creators. Using a phenomenological perspective, the article discusses how Blue Hour VR staged presence and embodiment within an intermedial haptic experience. Blue Hour VR demonstrates how virtual reality technology can be harnessed by a mixed reality performance design, which includes both the material and virtual environment, creating a complex stratigraphy of intermedial textures and visual dramaturgies that co-exist inside, outside and in between perceptual realities. In doing so, the article aims to contribute to the limited body of work on mixed and virtual reality in the context of theatre and performance design.

Acknowledgements

As the two creators of Blue Hour VR, we merge two perspectives within this article along the lines of our collaborative process. Paul Cegys presents the phenomenological and visual dimensions of the Blue Hour VR experience, and analyses the conceptualizations of meaning that arose from the complex intermedial stratigraphy of the mixed reality experience. Joris Weijdom offers perspectives on embodiment and presence in virtual and mixed reality, and discusses the hybrid and embodied technodramaturgical design process of Blue Hour VR.

The Blue Hour VR experience was conceived and created by Paul Cegys and Joris Weijdom, composed by Jonathan Cegys, programmed by Richard van der Lagemaat, with research and production support from Jessica Bertrand. Thank you especially to Marketa Fantová and Jan Rolnik whose support was central to the success of Blue Hour VR. We would also like to acknowledge the enormous effort it took to create the PQ’s 36Q° 2019 project. The full list of collaborators can be found at http://www.pq.cz/2018/03/27/36q-3/ .

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Paul Cegys' (MSc) work merges multiple practices of performance creation and design, from theatre and opera to site-responsive installation and intermedial VR/MR scenographies. Upholding his commitment to ecological imperatives he merges his artistic work with his sustainability practice (MSc in Sustainability Science and Environmental Studies, Lund University, Sweden). He is the digital scenographer for The Home, a VR experience designed for the Digital Oral Histories for Reconciliation project and is on the advisory board of the Toasterlab Mixed Reality Performance Atelier. He is on faculty at the University of Waterloo in the Department of Communication Arts and is a PhD Candidate in the School of Arts, Design and Architecture at Aalto University. For more information about his work please visit http://www.paulcegys.com

Joris Weijdom (MA) is a researcher and designer of mixed-reality experiences focusing on interdisciplinary creative processes and performativity. He is a lecturer and researcher at the HKU University of the Arts Utrecht where he founded the Media and Performance Laboratory (MAPLAB), enabling from 2012 until 2015 practice-led artistic research on the intersection of performance, media and technology. Currently he works as a researcher at the Professorship Performative Processes and teaches at several BA and MA courses. As part of his PhD project Joris researches creative processes in collaborative mixed reality environments (CMRE) in collaboration with University of Twente and Utrecht University.

Notes

1 Onboarding is a term used in game design to convey a basic level of knowledge needed to navigate the designed experience. In Blue Hour VR, onboarding was an intentional performative act led by the technical crew to assist the experiencer in transitioning between real and virtual worlds, and in understanding how to use the technology and navigate the experience safely.

2 We understand improvisation in the context of creativity and design as ‘the practice of composing or inventing extemporaneously, through some kind of responsive and situationally-dependent departure from preformed plans or expectation’ (Kang, Jackson, and Sengers 2018, 160:1).

3 The scenographic process was influenced by the practices of relation scenography that evolved out of The Home as part of the Digital Oral Histories for Reconciliation project. The Home is a VR experience that attempts to create an immersive scenography with the aim of honouring the principles of restorative justice (Roberts-Smith and Cegys 2019).