{"title":"Phenomenology of space and virtual reality. An experimental course for students in architecture","authors":"Matteo Vegetti","doi":"10.54103/ai/18166","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54103/ai/18166","url":null,"abstract":"The paper presents the theoretical assumptions and the way of conducting an experimental course on the Phenomenology of Space designed for architects and interior designers.\u0000The course made use of virtual reality to allow students to directly experience the perceptive and cognitive effects induced by the forms of space, colour, the texture of materials, and light. Virtual reality was also the medium that made it possible to translate certain philosophical concepts related to the phenomenology of space into an experiential and applicative field close to the sensitivity and spatial culture of the designers.\u0000The themes addressed gave rise to a progressive development that allowed students to develop an increasingly complex project and experiment with increasingly complex issues. The course began with the phenomenology of thresholds, and continued with the analysis of field and synesthesia, the phenomenology of atmospheres, and the analysis of orientation and mind maps. In each of these areas of research and experimentation, the common thread remained the relationship between the body and space. The article also presents the exercises proposed to the students and an overall assessment of the teaching experience.","PeriodicalId":111172,"journal":{"name":"AN-ICON. Studies in Environmental Images [ISSN 2785-7433]","volume":"88 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134300676","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The polysemy of Vilém Flusser’s concept of illusion","authors":"F. Restuccia","doi":"10.54103/ai/17655","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54103/ai/17655","url":null,"abstract":"Vilém Flusser uses the concept of illusion in a non-systematic way, resulting in two ostensible contradictions. First of all, he often uses the term illusion, while criticizing the metaphysic assumptions that it implies; secondly, he seems to both dispraise and value the illusionary nature of technical images. This article aims at clarifying Flusser’s thoughts on illusion in the belief that they are not as conflicting as they might seem at first.\u0000In fact, when Flusser deplores the risk of deception associated with technical images, he refers to the illusion of transparency. He does not oppose the concept of illusion to a supposed objective truth, on the contrary, he opposes the illusion of the objective nature of images to the awareness of their constructed and mediated character.\u0000However, a rational demystification of illusions is not a viable option, since, according to Flusser, they are the result of a voluntary self-deception: we suppress our critical thinking because we cannot bear its complexity, we want images to “release us from the necessity for conceptual, explanatory thought.” This is why Flusser thinks that aware illusion – in other words: fiction – can help us overcome our “inertia of happiness” and develop a critical imagination.","PeriodicalId":111172,"journal":{"name":"AN-ICON. Studies in Environmental Images [ISSN 2785-7433]","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130674102","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"On the razor’s edge","authors":"Pietro Conte, Lambert Wiesing","doi":"10.54103/ai/19919","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54103/ai/19919","url":null,"abstract":"Most often, the concept of illusion has been interpreted in a negative way as a synonym for deception. However, a second, positive meaning has gained sometimes prominence according to which illusion does not necessarily imply any cognitive failure or distortion. As such, it can even play an important role in eliciting genuine aesthetic enjoyment. This introduction focuses on crucial aspects in the history and theory of aesthetic illusion, a notion that has resurfaced recently as a key aspect of the phenomenon of immersion, being regarded as a goal to be pursued by both the creators and the experiencers of virtual environments.","PeriodicalId":111172,"journal":{"name":"AN-ICON. Studies in Environmental Images [ISSN 2785-7433]","volume":"374 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124680147","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Imagination and Körperzustand","authors":"Salvatore Tedesco","doi":"10.54103/ai/18189","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54103/ai/18189","url":null,"abstract":"The aesthetic reflection in the eighteenth century is deeply traversed by an experience perceived as capable of disrupting the disciplinary and cognitive system of early modernity: To feel the “own body,” that is, to feel its state of well-being or discomfort means to somehow modify from the inside the anthropological project of the Century of Enlightenment and to create the space and the lexicon of a modality of relationship (play, aesthetic illusion) that redefines the relationship with oneself and the context of construction of a future community.\u0000Whereas “Knowledge” and “Will” articulate the same strategy based on the relationship between the spiritual activity of a subject and the semiotic properties of an object, the orientation towards the condition of one’s own body defines in the play and in the aesthetic illusion the space of an imaginative reserve which is above all a reserve of time and mode of construction for a future sharing.\u0000Moses Mendelssohn’s thought constitutes the exemplary arrival point of an era of theoretical research that we are interested in investigating not only in terms of the solutions it has found for his time, but also in relation to the open problems, which continue to question our time.","PeriodicalId":111172,"journal":{"name":"AN-ICON. Studies in Environmental Images [ISSN 2785-7433]","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129176732","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Adventures beyond anthropocentrism in virtual reality art","authors":"Philippe Bédard","doi":"10.54103/ai/18458","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54103/ai/18458","url":null,"abstract":"In the following essay, I consider if and how VR’s uncanny ability to create an illusion of presence and generate a sense of body ownership might be used to go beyond our anthropocentric perspective, towards non-human experiences. By adventuring outside the domain of human experience, my goal is to address the affordances and limitations of VR’s illusionistic potential. Knowing full well that certain economic pressures preclude artists from pursuing the kinds of provocations I describe in this essay, I nevertheless invite readers to follow along as I explore alternative potentialities of contemporary VR. Specifically, I approach VR here in the hopes of finding ways of engaging with different bodies, spaces, and realities, even if illusorily.","PeriodicalId":111172,"journal":{"name":"AN-ICON. Studies in Environmental Images [ISSN 2785-7433]","volume":"36 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125672637","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Caravaggio’s gyroscope","authors":"F. Zucconi","doi":"10.54103/ai/18191","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54103/ai/18191","url":null,"abstract":"In the first of the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures that he gave at Harvard in 1984, Frank Stella focused on “The necessity of creating pictorial space that is capable of dissolving its own perimeter and surface plane,” and claimed that “No one helped lighten this burden more than Caravaggio.” At a certain point in his talk, the American artist went so far as to say that Caravaggio anticipated the invention of the gyroscope, the technological device which makes the virtual experience possible. Stella’s lecture is the starting point for developing an anachronistic path through pictorial and digital media, in light of their ability to produceillusionistic effects on viewers. In particular, building on Michael Fried’s theory of art and image, this paper investigates virtual experience with reference to two different moments: the “immersive” moment, in which one has the impression of stepping into the frame, and the “specular” one, where the illusionistic effects are revealed; the attraction, when sinking into an image that has become an environment, and the distancing, when the image itself beckons to us and we are invited to reflect on our position as viewers.","PeriodicalId":111172,"journal":{"name":"AN-ICON. Studies in Environmental Images [ISSN 2785-7433]","volume":"38 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121795307","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Clothes with no emperors","authors":"Yizeng Zhang","doi":"10.54103/ai/17124","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54103/ai/17124","url":null,"abstract":"Digital garments are tailored computationally and dressed virtually. Intended to be displayed rather than worn, digital fashion exemplifies the function of aesthetic commodities as defined by Gernot Böhme: the production of atmospheres – intangible qualities arising from a material encounter – towards the staging of life. Yet, made from pixels instead of fabric, virtual garments beckon a new conceptual framework for the role of materiality in atmospheric productions. Drawing from new media and affect scholars, this essay traces the display of digital garments across three sites: the e-commerce website, social media, and the runway show. By analyzing the visual and literary production surrounding digital fashion, this essay proposes“elemental surface” as a representational technique and rhetorical strategy through which digital garments produce and intensify the body’s affective presence. Situating Böhme’s formulation of atmosphere in dialogue with the notion of“aura” put forth by Walter Benjamin, the study of digital fashion foregrounds the role of environmental perception in the history of haptic technology.","PeriodicalId":111172,"journal":{"name":"AN-ICON. Studies in Environmental Images [ISSN 2785-7433]","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130970032","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Hallucinatory syndromes / Immersion in the image. Classical theories and perspectives","authors":"Marcin Sobieszczanski","doi":"10.54103/ai/19595","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54103/ai/19595","url":null,"abstract":"From the outset, the inventors of 3D, VR/AR and analogue and digital immersion thought of these devices as functional models of our perceptive capacities, serving to expand our sensory knowledge and to support our communications based on multisensory storytelling. How is it that a solid critical tradition then assimilates them to hallucinatory phenomena? The answer lies in marketing techniques that have always associated dreams and illusions with the desire to play with reality. But there is a deeper, epistemic reason.The sources of scientific thought of hallucinations are marked, in the 19th century, by the theory of “sensations without objects.” Perception being distorted, the knowledge it provides is pointless. It is therefore possible to replace the vacant object with our desires to act out subjectively the real. This conviction initiated by Dr. Jean-Étienne Dominique Esquirol has survived to the present day. However, the history of the scientific approach of hallucinations shows another theoretical framework, particularly prolific but curiously forgotten: the theory of reality monitoring and arbitration of sources of information provided from Dr. Henri Ey. We propose to forge on these concepts a critical tool of the current mediadesign.","PeriodicalId":111172,"journal":{"name":"AN-ICON. Studies in Environmental Images [ISSN 2785-7433]","volume":"19 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132292366","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The hallucinatory aspect of virtual reality and the Image as a \"Bilderschrift\"","authors":"Pietro Montani","doi":"10.54103/ai/15441","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54103/ai/15441","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000\u0000\u0000This article discusses the following points: \u0000• The analogies which can be identified between Virtual Reality (VR) and the hallucinatory aspects of dream activity make sense within a network of relations characterised by certain important cognitive performances (in particular inferential performances) which can be attributed to the work of the imagination; \u0000• To assure the plasticity of these performances, the imagination seems to have to distance itself somewhat from linguistic thought and in dreams this is achieved regressively via the hallucinatory state. Various authoritative neuroscientific approaches to dreams significantly substantiate this theory. \u0000• At the time when its correlation with linguistic thought is deactivated, the imagination does not, however, surrender itself to the hallucinatory event but elaborates it with recourse to practices similar to those of syncretic writing – a Bilderschrift or “pictographic script” as defined by Freud;\u0000• It is significant that very early cinema also addressed the quasi-hallucinatory aspects of films, practising an “intermedial” Bilderschrift, i.e. a treatment of the images that is attentive to the comparison and integration of the different levels of expression which work together in the composition of a film;\u0000• Digital images seem to revive this production model in several ways and I will offer two examples highlighting their affinity with syncretic and intermedial writing. \u0000\u0000\u0000","PeriodicalId":111172,"journal":{"name":"AN-ICON. Studies in Environmental Images [ISSN 2785-7433]","volume":"20 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123871468","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Perception, hallucination, virtual reality. From controlled hallucination to Resident Evil 7: Biohazard","authors":"C. Paolucci","doi":"10.54103/ai/15443","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.54103/ai/15443","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000\u0000\u0000In this paper, I will work on the relationship between perception and imagination in Virtual Reality, claiming that “hallucination” is the ordinary motor also for online perception and not only a deviant form of it. First, I will deal with the problem of perception from the point of view of cognitive semiotics and I will try to underline the crucial role of imagination, claiming that perception is a form of “controlled hallucination”. Later, I will focus on the relationship between perception, hallucination, and memory in Virtual Reality. On the one hand, I will claim that Virtual Reality expresses the transition from actual perception to imagination, memory or dream through another actual perception. On the other hand, I will claim that it can express it without any problems through the old techniques coming from cinema and other audiovisual languages, since they partially share the very same formal apparatus of enunciation. I will demonstrate all of this by analyzing Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. \u0000\u0000\u0000","PeriodicalId":111172,"journal":{"name":"AN-ICON. Studies in Environmental Images [ISSN 2785-7433]","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125806880","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}