Phenomenologies of practice: the artist in virtual worlds

Abstract

In the field of art and technology engagement with virtual worlds as spaces for creative practice challenges and enhances our understanding of the phenomena of imagining. The experience of creating in technology-mediated spaces (through an avatar form) brings the phenomenological experience of the body into the act of creating itself. Ways of explaining this creative process and its relationship to imaginative experience highlights a phenomenology of practice of artists working in this realm. This article considers the implications of the methodological approaches that have been chosen in an inter-disciplinary context and the case for investigating artistic and imaginative experience through adapting phenomenological research methods. It presents the results of the analysis and provides an account of the method of Imaginative Variation and its adaptation for use in new contexts.