Doctoral candidate Mancianti Andrea

The living threshold / Altered States. An ecological approach to queering immersive experiences

Tieteellinen tutkimus ja taiteellinen työ / niihin pohjautuva työ | Kaksivuotinen

Immersion has been central for various art practices and fields, from music, painting or theatre to newer ones such as audiovisual or installation art. In recent years, with VR commercially available, immersion has been adopted as a buzzword by the entertainment and consumer electronics industries as part of their commercial strategies. As a result the term has become almost synonymous with specific technologies and experiences (often disengaging realistic visual spectacles), which are permeated by ideological qualities (realism, homogenisation, visual predominance, passivity, novelty), and responsible for practices leading to rapid obsolescence and waste proliferation. This artistic research questions these problematic aspects, using poetic strategies and experimental and reflective practices, to expose the ideologies at work. At the same time it attempts to research alternative solutions for immersive artistic productions, exploring low-tech, DIY, DIT approaches – to adapt, recycle and repair rather than contribute to the production of electronic waste and corporate wealth. If the industry seeks for a transparent, objectified technology, erasing its own agency as much as possible to create credible visual illusions, instead this research aims at producing sonic and embodied immersive pieces. It builds on the peculiar experience determined by the encounter with a technological interface, pointing at the intricacy of entanglement between material and immaterial layers.