Sending Shivers Down the Spine. VR Productions as Seamed Media

Abstract

Abstract According to Rebecca Rouse’s concept of “media of attraction” (2016), the mediums of virtual reality have four characteristics: they are participatory, interdisciplinary, unassimilated and seamed. The author’s hypothesis is that even though 360-degree films and virtual reality experiences as seamed mediums are remediating the medium of film, they have the characteristics of the medium of live performance. She points out that the characteristics of performance art based on Fischer-Lichte’s taxonomy (2008), such as liveness and co-presence, are influencing the development of 360-degree films and virtual reality experiences. As an argument, she analyses three virtual reality productions created by performing artists, which operate with the specificity of intermediality and the longing for immersion, the main characteristic of virtual reality. These productions lean on the immediacy characteristics of the medium of film and performance by using cut-scenes, linear narratives, live streaming, but also by including the “human interface,” i.e., the actor, who ensures a higher level of absorption.1