While narrative and design grammars for making virtual reality and immersive experiences are still in development, designers and artists are starting to better understand what audiences respond to within the experiences they design. Some research is in development to make bespoke haptic garments as interfaces to send and receive sensation, enabling wearers to interact with each other’s bodies within immersive virtual and mixed reality spaces and contexts for performance and other social interaction.
In most immersive VR experiences, embodiment or embodied presence ideally should involve the “…awareness of bodily sensations… [so that in] The combination of VR and interception …not only do you feel like you’re in a VR environment, but because you’ve consciously worked to integrate your bodily sensations into VR, it’s a full, more vivid version of presence.” (Rubin, 2018:51) “Touch is the oldest sense, and most urgent sense” (Ackerman 1990). It can be argued that “we need continual intimate interaction with others through physical contact in order for the brain to be properly and continuously regulated; online or mobile connections do not suffice” (Baker CC 2018).
Haptic interfaces are a major factor in feeling immersed, embodied being in and interacting with the world and others in virtual contexts. “…embodiment and its various states can be described as: (1) being in the body, the mind—body integration; and (2) being in the body, but also sensing and extending the mind, such as (3) …. within virtual worlds, space and other immersive environments – and to some extent through the internet and in social media…” and “ …the embodied, in-person aspects of liveness and how our bodies connect the technologies of modern living….that technology and the body meet, to interface to extend beyond the boundary of skin, and our engagement with technology occurs in the process. (Idhe (2002: 5–7, quoted in Baker 2018:60) In VR embodiment, also called embodied presence is …interception… awareness of bodily sensations… [so that in] The combination of VR and interception …not only do you feel like you’re in a VR environment, but because you’ve consciously worked to integrate your bodily sensations into VR, its a full, more vivid version of presence.”(Rubin, 2018:51)
Touch is combined with the other sensory modalities to form a coherent and robust percept of the world. By creating emotional and physical connections within VR experiences through narrative and physical actuation, using haptic interfaces is the best way elicit a fully embodied experience for ‘immersants’(Char Davies’ 2004).
In the author’s practice, creating an emotional and physical connection between VR experiences and narrative and physical actuation through haptic interfaces is the best way to create a fully immersive experience for audiences.
This paper will discuss discoveries from the design and exhibition of the author’s virtual reality (VR) installation artwork in particular, INTER/her, as well as other personally experienced works, and the role of haptics in making audience experiences richer, deeper, visceral and personal.