A Brief Typology of Immersive Viewing Systems - Text 1
Like imitation in former times, immersion has always been a central program of the modernity, research and development, and production and consumption of images. Quickly defined, immersion is an experience which gives the sensation of entering physically into another space, one different from that in which one finds oneself. But in fact this very general term covers a variety of experiences. In one of the best syntheses of the question, Gordon Calleja identifies as many as six dimensions of what he prefers to call “involvement,” which can be spatial, narrative, affective, kinaesthetic, ludic and shared[1]. Of all these forms of involvement, however, spatial immersion and kinaesthetic immersion remain the most important. In their study of the “reality-virtuality continuum,”[2] Paul Milgram and his colleagues draw up a screen typology based on a number of criteria, including the degree of immersion, meaning the observer’s position vis-à-vis the image. This criterion contrasts exocentric screens, which keep the observer outside the world depicted, and egocentric screens, which place the observer in the heart of the world depicted. These distinctions make it possible to indicate and better conceive the horizon of the immersive program, which should aim not only to construct a world in perspective, around a vanishing point and point of view, and not just the illusion of depth or relief. It should also seek to inscribe the user, beyond the surface and frame, right in the heart of the virtual world, which we should thus call egocentric spatial immersion.[3]
Audio technology quickly provided users with an egocentric spatial position – by means of stereo, surround sound, binaural recording, ambiophonics, etc. Images, however, because they are generally flat and limited, are not as immersive spatially: they generally leave the viewer in front of the image, on this side of the surface and the frame. At the same time, using a variety of means they can make viewers forget their limitations and enable them to enter the depicted space through the imagination.
Historically, two principal strategies (functioning as both experimental and business models) have been employed to facilitate this imaginary immersion. The first consists in enlarging the image. This gave rise to a familiar image viewing system, with a monumental and generally moored image, and to a collective experience in a dedicated space, often with an admission fee. In this way the fresco, the bel composto, the history painting, the large-format landscape, the magic lantern, the panorama, movie-theatre cinema, 3D cinema, IMAX cinema, circular cinema, the projection dome and every monumental viewing system has been able, without ceasing to be images limited by a frame and a surface, to provide the viewer with an experience which is suggestive of egocentric spatial immersion.
The second strategy consists not in enlarging the image but in bringing it closer. This has generated a different kind of viewing system, offering a miniature and often portable image, a private show, an individual or family experience, which can be partaken of anywhere, at home or on the go but always close to the body. Frequently, this involves the user acquiring technology which offers content on demand. In this way miniature paintings, small-format landscapes, optical toys, photography, stereoscopy, the kinetoscope, television, game consoles, virtual or augmented reality face masks and every other form of up-close viewing system has been able, despite its dimensions, to facilitate the viewer’s imaginary immersion in the image.
While these two strategies may appear to be opposites, in the end they are similar: they identify the frame of the image, the boundaries of the artificial field of view and those of the natural field of view; they bring them closer at least in order to heighten virtual space and reduce real space; and they enable viewers to picture themselves, no longer in their world, but rather in the centre of the world depicted.
Obviously, however, this identification is never complete: whether monumental or up-close, whether the image makes the viewer forget the surface (though stereoscopy) or not, it is still bound by a frame – by the frame of a screen, a television, a computer, a mask – and distanced. And immersive viewing systems, to fill this gap which nevertheless persists between the two visual fields, resort to different methods. The first consists in reinforcing the separation between the two spaces and in obscuring the real space occupied by the viewer: the image is surrounded by a frame and by a stage frame and curtain; the theatre is plunged into darkness; the headset has blinders; the inside of the box is black; etc. The second method consists, on the contrary, of simulating continuity, a connection, between the two spaces: it creates virtual space and/or makes real space virtual; it makes this space diegetic; it narrativizes and fictionalizes it; it pays particular attention to the threshold between the image and the space, as in a trompe l’oeil painting. In a panorama, for example, the connection between the real ground and the image’s vertical support is curved and continuous, and is concealed by real three-dimensional decor elements (a balustrade, bushes, earth or sand, props, sculpted characters, etc.). In other viewing systems, such as the Cinéorama, the Mareorama, the Trans-Siberian panorama, Hale’s Tours and many amusement parks today, images shot from a moving vehicle or which replicate a tracking shot – from a train, a balloon, a boat – are shown in venues decorated, structured and sometimes even moving in ways which resemble a train car, a gondola or a boat.
These two great viewing systems – the monumental and the up-close – are obviously ideal types whose function is largely heuristic. Some viewing systems are hybrid, such as 3D cinema or IMAX, which use eyeglasses or giant screens, and kinetoscope parlours or VR arcades, which contain several individual devices in the same semi-public space, and VR theme park rides, VR entertainment centres or online multi-player videogames, in which we find individual face masks, consoles and accessories as well as a community of present and/or virtual players.
In fact there exists an infinite number of viewing systems between the monumental and the up-close; there vary, among other factors, according to:
- the location: the viewing system can be either moored or mobile, immovable or movable, in a domestic, institutional or public space, etc.;
- the body’s distance from the interface: the viewing system can be at a remove or up-close, installed or carried in the hand or on the head, embedded, etc.;
- the degree of immersion and the sensory range, meaning the relation between the natural sensory interface and the technological interface, between the natural perceptual field and the technological perceptual field: the viewing system can have a large spatial range (depending on the size of the image and its depth and relief), temporal range (depending on the connection between the time of the world depicted and that of the experience, the order and duration, real time, live or delayed transmission), or multi-sensory range (visual, audio, haptic, olfactory, gustatory);
- the degree of motor interactivity and range, meaning the connection between the natural motor interface and the technological interface, between the natural motive field and the technological motive field: the viewing system can provide varying degrees of freedom and capture different movements of the head, hand or body, connecting them with various virtual movements, etc.;
- the social range; the viewing system can be geared to the individual, the family or a group, can be solo or multi-player, etc.
The immersive program, which is both technological (for producers) and aesthetic (for consumers) is obviously utopian. The fantastic objective is complete interactive immersion, with total sensory and motor range covering the entire sensorium and the entire sensory-motor field, meaning to bring together the technological interface (the screen, the speaker, etc.) and the natural interface (the skin with all its modulations – retina, tympanum, mucus membranes, etc. – and the members – head, hands, legs, etc.) to the point of contact, the point of the identity of the two interfaces (by means of the eyepiece, the headset, the face mask, the eyeglasses, the contact lenses, the headphones, the seat, the controller, the tactile screen, the glove, the suit, the motion detector, etc.) and even to the point of integrating the technological interface, beyond the skin with organic implants, beyond the senses and the muscles with nervous implants and beyond the nerves with neural implants or “direct neural interfaces.” From the subject’s point of view, the interface is in this way naturalized[4] and incorporated into the corporeal schema. The interface is made imperceptible.
This immersive program has been defined in universities and businesses, in laboratories and factories, in scientific laboratories and industrial laboratories, often with support from the government and the military, particularly in the United States. This integration of scientific and industrial research is obviously reinforced considerably in wartime. The history of cinema, radio and television, computer science and cybernetics, virtual or augmented reality, video games and artificial intelligence, is clearly tied up with the First and Second World Wars, the Cold War and the “War on Terrorism,” each of which corresponds to major waves of funding, research and development. In the United States, the connections between the entertainment industry and the military industry are so close that some people speak readily of a “military-entertainment complex.”[5]
Be that as it may, in the expanded field of mass culture in the late nineteenth century, when numerous attractions fought ruthlessly for attention, the two immersive viewing systems, the up-close and the monumental, were rivals. In the twentieth century, with the institutionalization of cinema, the monumental viewing system became dominant and the up-close viewing system was marginalized. The latter would survive, however, and regularly came back to haunt movie-theatre cinema, especially at times of “disputes,” in particular with the growth of electronics and information technology.
