How might we move beyond the often ‘clunky’ and disembodied nature of current immersive experiences?
Thuis seeks to reimagine immersion not as a technical feat but as a felt, embodied practice — one that reconnects us to the world rather than detaching us from it. By placing the body at the centre of immersive experience (IX) design, we ask: how can IX foster deeper sensations of connection, belonging and the elusive feeling of “home”? An urgent question that has emerged from the practice of the makers of immersive work involved in the project, in combination with pressing societal challenges.
We see that all too often the (human) body is sidelined in immersive experiences and rendered “mute” by overly complicated media. Think of clunky headsets, convoluted controls and networks of wires that have come to define restrictive and controlled experiences, which heavily limit these experiences from feeling truly immersive and powerful. These technological thresholds tend to relegate the sensory and feeling aspects of the body involved. The body can end up being incidental to IX (or afforded a limited range of experience) despite being right there in the middle of it all.
Together with the partners CIxD researchers will investigate how the body can become more central to immersive experiences; and in this recentering how can it foster a feeling of home amongst participants? Within this central question, our two-year artistic research focuses on three interconnected themes: Spatial Awareness, Embodied Empathy, and Collective Belonging. Through a research-through-design methodology, this investigation will result in two artistic pilots; four public “reflection” events; a local case study; and extensive online documentation to be shared with the wider IX field in forms that suit the needs of the different target groups (e.g coders, designers, researchers).