The FIFTH WALL. On DIGITAL PERFORMANCE between USER EXPERIENCE DESIGN and the METAVERSE

Abstract

Before and since the pandemic, online virtual environments have emerged as critical sites for social and cultural experiences, facilitating conversations, creative projects, collective endeavours, and commercial exchanges. The rise of the Metaverse (Ball, 2021) represents a fundamental shift in today's digital presence. After Eva and Franco Mattes' historical happenings in Second Life, some recent hypermedia performances force a re-evaluation of the nature of performance, with a recontextualisation of the notions of reality, presence, community, and simulation. UX design reshapes and situates the emergence of 'metaverse-native' art in adjacent fields such as online 3D collaboration platforms: actual and perfect virtual stages.  Since the mid-1990s, the user has increasingly been invited to live an unusual experience in which the physical and the digital merge. The noun 'user experience' refers to how people experience the encounter with a system. It extends traditional human-computer interaction design by addressing all aspects of the product or service as perceived by the user, increasing satisfaction and loyalty by improving usability. The UX classification system is based on the user's emotions, preferences, attitudes, and emotional responses (Hussain et al., 2021). Its dramaturgical importance in an online digital performance has yet to be recognised.  This article proposes the analysis of three examples of digital performances (Dixon, 2007), in virtual 3D online environments, following the philosophy of User Experience Design, focusing on the perspectives and productions of Italian artists.Before and since the pandemic, online virtual environments have emerged as critical sites for social and cultural experiences, facilitating conversations, creative projects, collective endeavours, and commercial exchanges. The rise of the Metaverse (Ball, 2021) represents a fundamental shift in today's digital presence. After Eva and Franco Mattes' historical happenings in Second Life, some recent hypermedia performances force a re-evaluation of the nature of performance, with a recontextualisation of the notions of reality, presence, community, and simulation. UX design reshapes and situates the emergence of 'metaverse-native' art in adjacent fields such as online 3D collaboration platforms: actual and perfect virtual stages.  Since the mid-1990s, the user has increasingly been invited to live an unusual experience in which the physical and the digital merge. The noun 'user experience' refers to how people experience the encounter with a system. It extends traditional human-computer interaction design by addressing all aspects of the product or service as perceived by the user, increasing satisfaction and loyalty by improving usability. The UX classification system is based on the user's emotions, preferences, attitudes, and emotional responses (Hussain et al., 2021). Its dramaturgical importance in an online digital performance has yet to be recognised.  This article proposes the analysis of three examples of digital performances (Dixon, 2007), in virtual 3D online environments, following the philosophy of User Experience Design, focusing on the perspectives and productions of Italian artists.