<div dir="ltr">Hello Gordon, Patrick and empyreans,<div><br></div><div>Thank you for once again puting good food for tought in the empyre list. This is a fascinating debate. It adresses some topics I've been into for years, so I couldn't resist posting.</div><div><br></div><div>In the last years I've been involved in a lot of discussions about games and virtual-reality environments here in Brazil. Some of these concerned master dissertations in which I was the supervisor, some of them written by particularly talented students. In his work about "Virtual reality and the experience of space" (2010), Lucas Meneguette (who is now finishing a Phd thesis about sound identity in games, also under my supervision) and I crafted a particularly interesting definition of "immersion", with a certain Phenomenology style. The work siped in Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception, but also explored the concept of "enactive perception", with some Maturana and Varela's influences and other sources, as also as many references on works about virtual-reality.</div><div><br></div><div>I've been exploring the limits of this definition in class in the last years, and I thought it would be interesting to share it here, given that the concept of immersion has been brought to the center of the arena. I find it particularly synthetic and productive:<br><br>------------<br><br>Immersion:</div><div><br></div><div>It's the condition of performing in a circumstance which may be or may not be defined as a set of representations, in such a way that all agent's behaviors are motivated by interactions with things constituted in such circumstance's horizon. (Basbaum, apud Meneguette, 2010: 101). It is important to notice that there's not such a condition of immersion fully defined by a set of representations, as much as there's no immersion which is free from representations (that is: just defined just by presences): these are theoretical limits. <br><br>-------------<br><br>The consequences of this definition are wide. About the concept of "representation", I've been exploring, through the year, an idea that I read in an Andrew Wheeler's article, in which he distiguishes "presence" and "representation" in a way I found wise and clarifying. </div><div><br></div><div>I hope you may enjoy it, and I hope to contribute to the discussion.</div><div><br></div><div>good vibes from Brazil</div><div>s </div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Oct 17, 2015 at 9:15 AM, Gordon Calleja <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:gordon.calleja@um.edu.mt" target="_blank">gordon.calleja@um.edu.mt</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------<br><div dir="ltr">Thanks Patrick. The reason for going down the path of proposing my own term - which is always a risky move, especially in an emerging field littered with new concepts vying for attention - was that existing terms that referred to the same experiential phenomenon (the sense of inhabiting a virtual space) , presence and immersion, were based on what I felt were shaky theoretical foundations. Aside from the vagueness that immersion has accrued over time in game studies and related fields, both it and presence assume a here and there relationship, a portal through which one goes through to leave the real/physical/everyday behind and enter into the virtual other-world. This binary is problematic as a foundational perspective of the experience of virtual environments as it flies against several schools of thought on consciousness and being. It obviously stems from viewing the virtual space as bounded rather than continuous with the everyday world. <div><br></div><div>Incorporation side-steps that problematic perspective and instead conceptualises the experience of virtual environments as an absorption into consciousness - as a "bringing here" rather than "going there" - while also requiring an awareness that the user has a systemically upheld embodiment in the virtual world. These dual requirements - the absorption into consciousness and systemically upheld embodiment - make it more restrictive in application. The latter is a good thing, in my mind, as too often experiential or other ephemeral phenomena become understood too vaguely due to their overly elastic conceptualisation.</div><div><br></div><div>Gordon</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On 14 October 2015 at 17:58, Patrick Keilty <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:p.keilty@utoronto.ca" target="_blank">p.keilty@utoronto.ca</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------<br><div dir="ltr">Gordon, I would love to hear more about incorporation, as a space that affords an expression of agency within a cybernetic circuit. Meanwhile, I am dashing to the library to grab your book to read more about it! </div><div class="gmail_extra"><br clear="all"><div><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><span></span><span></span>Patrick Keilty<div>Assistant Professor<br>Faculty of Information<br></div><div>Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies</div><div>University of Toronto</div><div><a href="http://www.patrickkeilty.com/" target="_blank">http://www.patrickkeilty.com/</a><br></div></div></div></div></div></div>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Oct 13, 2015 at 6:43 PM, Gordon Calleja <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:gordon.calleja@um.edu.mt" target="_blank">gordon.calleja@um.edu.mt</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------<br><div dir="ltr">
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Calibri;background-image:initial;background-repeat:initial">Hi
all and thanks to Patrick for inviting me to join the discussion here. I have been researching and writing about
games within Game Studies for over a decade now, so the perspectives I offer
here will be marinated in ludic sauce.
The bulk of my game research has tackled the experiential side of
games. I have been particularly
interested in analyzing the nature of player experience and have aimed to
contribute both a more nuanced understanding and talking about player experience
as well as offering an alternative way of thinking about the fuzzy concept of
immersion. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Calibri;background-image:initial;background-repeat:initial"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Calibri">Immersion is problematic because it
tends to roll all forms of involvement with interactive media, especially forms
of virtual environments, into one type of experience, at times plotted on a
continuum of intensity but seldom acknowledging the variety of experiential
forms that come into play when dealing with complex media artefacts such as
games. So immersion is used to signify
general absorption with a game or virtual environment, as well as the sense of
being in the simulated environment, at times referred to as “presence”. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Calibri"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Calibri">The second problem arises when we
consider the latter experiential form: the sense of inhabiting the virtual
environment. The real and the virtual
are plotted, erroneously, on two sides of a divide with the metaphors of
immersion and presence implying a move from one realm to another.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Calibri"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Calibri">My research, contained in <i>In-Game: From Immersion to Incorporation </i>(apologies
for the shameless plug), argues that the first problem requires a better
understanding of the various dimensions of involvement in virtual environments
and games, along with an appreciation of the difference between attention,
involvement/engagement and presence/immersion as different layers of cognition
and experience. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Calibri"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Calibri">The second problem argues for
conceptualising immersion and presence not as a dive into the <i>virtual other</i>, but an absorption into
consciousness of the virtual environment, what I have called <i>incorporation</i>, as a space that affords an
expression of agency within a cybernetic circuit.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Calibri"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>-- <br><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><font size="1"><br></font><div><font size="1">Gordon Calleja</font></div><div><font size="1">Associate Professor and Director </font></div><div><font size="1">Institute of Digital Games</font></div><div><font size="1">University of Malta</font></div><div><font size="1">Malta</font></div><div><font size="1"><br></font></div><div><font size="1">Associate Professor</font></div><div><font size="1">Center for Games Research</font></div><div><font size="1">IT-University of Copenhagen</font></div><div><font size="1">Denmark.</font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
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<br>_______________________________________________<br>
empyre forum<br>
<a href="mailto:empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au" target="_blank">empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au</a><br>
<a href="http://empyre.library.cornell.edu" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://empyre.library.cornell.edu</a><br></blockquote></div><br></div>
<br>_______________________________________________<br>
empyre forum<br>
<a href="mailto:empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au" target="_blank">empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au</a><br>
<a href="http://empyre.library.cornell.edu" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://empyre.library.cornell.edu</a><br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><font size="1"><br></font><div><font size="1">Gordon Calleja</font></div><div><font size="1">Associate Professor and Director </font></div><div><font size="1">Institute of Digital Games</font></div><div><font size="1">University of Malta</font></div><div><font size="1">Malta</font></div><div><font size="1"><br></font></div><div><font size="1">Associate Professor</font></div><div><font size="1">Center for Games Research</font></div><div><font size="1">IT-University of Copenhagen</font></div><div><font size="1">Denmark.</font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
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<br>_______________________________________________<br>
empyre forum<br>
<a href="mailto:empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au">empyre@lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au</a><br>
<a href="http://empyre.library.cornell.edu" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://empyre.library.cornell.edu</a><br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr">-- Prof. Dr. Sérgio Roclaw Basbaum<br>-- Pós-Graduação Tec.da Inteligência e Design Digital - TIDD (PUC-SP)<br><div><br></div><div>-- <a href="http://www.sergiobasbaum.net" target="_blank">www.sergiobasbaum.net</a></div><div>-- <a href="http://soundcloud.com/sergiobasbaum" target="_blank">http://soundcloud.com/sergiobasbaum</a></div><div><a href="https://soundcloud.com/pantharei" target="_blank">-- http://soundcloud.com/pantharei</a></div><div><a href="http://soundcloud.com/sergiobasbaum/choror-bye-bye" target="_blank">...sai dessa fila, vem pra roda festejar..</a><br></div><div>-- <a href="http://blogpantharei.blogspot.com.br/" target="_blank">http://blogpantharei.blogspot.com.br/</a><br></div><div>-- <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXlPdYtxV5bj5uAQwXC-M_Q" target="_blank">pantharei_tube</a></div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div></div>
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