Research

This practice-based research explores the reflexive dimensions of cinematic virtual reality (VR) within intersubjective contexts beyond empathy. Many artists and filmmakers are embracing VR as a creative medium, attracted to the ways that cinematic VR can, for example, elicit emotional engagement and empathic identification. This, however, carries the potential risk of uncritical acceptance or witnessing another’s pain without self-critical awareness. While the reflexive dimensions of cinema and new media art have developed through Brechtian estrangement effects and avant-garde filmmaking techniques, the reflexivity of cinematic VR is yet to be understood sufficiently. Because VR is fundamentally an immersive medium, investigating reflexivity in VR carries the risk of breaking that immersion. The research argues that a VR experience is fundamentally reflexive in nature due to the limitations of immersive engagement, which derives from the technical limitations of the medium and the duality of virtual embodiment. Artists and creators can employ these constraints as estrangement effects that encourage the audience to actively “fill in the gaps” between their physical sensations and virtual perceptions. The practice-based research developed three cinematic VR projects that apply reflexive elements in qualitatively different ways: Floating Walk (360° video), Anonymous (interactive mobile VR) and Sleeping Eyes (interactive navigable VR). These creative works explore the potential of cinematic VR for eliciting embodied reflection. The projects are responses to alienation, disconnection and isolation; sociocultural issues which prompt the audience to engage in self-reflection in sociocultural contexts and consider how they connect with others. These artworks play on the different media constraints of VR technology as a cinematic medium by exploring different methods of storytelling, interaction and aesthetic techniques, in an effort to advance the language of this new medium.

The aim of this art-based research is to explore the duality of embodiment and presence in virtual reality (VR) through a narrative about the South Korean narcoleptic artist, Sungeun Lee. Narcolepsy is a neurological disorder where a person falls asleep unexpectedly. A narcoleptic struggles with a blurred and unsure sense of self, as well as confusion between reality and dreaming. We used VR to simulate his traumatized dream world and symptoms of narcolepsy. However, we also investigated the fundamental duality of embodiment/disembodiment in the virtual space and its parallels in the dream world. A non-linear narrative and generative poetic aesthetics driven by biometric feedback were applied to represent a surreal and uncertain sense of self. Gesture-based navigable interaction was used to connect people with their physical bodies, the virtual environment, and Sungeun’s experiences.

• Sojung Bahng (2022). Sleeping Eyes. Exhibit X, Interactions 29, 2 (March – April 2022), ACM, New York, USA, pp. 10–13.
• Sojung Bahng, Nina Rajcic, Jon McCormack and Sungeun Lee (2020) Sleeping Eyes: Experiencing Narcolepsy Through the Duality of Virtual Embodiment. In Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction (TEI ’20). ACM, New York, USA, pp. 639–645.
• Sojung Bahng, Nina Rajcic, Elliot Wilson, Jon McCormack and Sungeun Lee (2020) Sleeping Eyes: VR narcolepsy storytelling through the duality of presence. Proceedings of International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA), Montreal, Canada, pp. 453–456 (ISBN: 978-2-9816413-2-8).

This research describes the reflexive dimensions of cinematic VR, using alienation and disembodiment as rhetorical devices. Cinematic VR currently focuses on immersive illusion rather than inducing self-awareness, but VR can also create reflexive contexts for eliciting self and social reflection. Anonymous is an interactive cinematic VR that explores solitude and mortality, specifically people living and dying alone. The work plays on the technical limitations of VR technology as a narrative medium to create a sense of disembodiment and alienation, eliciting embodied reflexivity.

• Sojung Bahng, Ryan Kelly and Jon McCormack (2020) Reflexive VR Storytelling Design Beyond Immersion: Facilitating Self-Reflection on Death and Loneliness. In Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM, New York, USA, pp. 1–13
• Sojung Bahng, Toby Gifford and Jon McCormack (2019) Anonymous: VR Storytelling Through Alienation and Reflexivity. Proceedings of International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA), Gwangju, South Korea, pp.120–127 (ISBN: 979-11-87275-06-0).

‘썸(some)’, a trendy word in Korea now, is an abbreviation of ‘썸씽 (something)’. It is widely used to describe a complicated or ambiguous state in a relationship. It may imply an anxiety of indeterminacy and a desire for mystery when people create the complex concept of love. Like animals, people are sexually attracted to each other, but, with their mental capabilities, they can transfer this sexual energy to affection or attachment. These fragility and beauty of human beings are what distinguished from animals.

In Korean society, as a whole, people constantly define their values and identity based on other people’s evaluation of them, so personal relationships have become a burden in this era of limitless competition. Therefore, people may categorize their undefinable relationship as ‘썸 (some)’ to justify their uncomfortable situations or feelings although they can naturally experience ‘something’ in everyday life. Can we capture the essence of ‘something’ as complex emotions that only human beings can create? ‘썸(some)’ can be explained as the map of connections that each individual’s memory reconstructs, the complex processes of brain activities or the psychophysiological response patterns in human connections.

<SOMPLEXITY> is an Art & Technology exhibition that represents the various layers of ‘썸(some)’ through the collaboration of art, technology and science. This exhibition presents the different significant moments individuals confront consciously and unconsciously in human relationships. <SOMPLEXITY> explores the features of ‘썸(some)’ in terms of ‘complexity’ – a term for describing a system that has many coaffecting variables that interact in diverse and unpredictable ways. The exhibition examines the chaotic process of forming relationships by combining various sciences and technologies such as neuroscience, new media and physics.