VR Webinar: Virtual Reality and the Optical Explosion of the Senses
Angela Ndalianis delivers the 2nd installment of our webinar series, Seeing Double: The Multiple Worlds of Virtual Reality, presented on 3 June 2020 in partnership with the Digital Studio. REGISTRATIONS CLOSED.
Date and time: Wednesday 3 June 2020, 1:00-2:00PM AEST
Registration: Closed
Title: Virtual Reality and the Optical Explosion of the Senses
Description: Professor Angela Ndalianis will be presenting on how Virtual Reality experiences introduce new forms of perception and embodiment that transform what Jonathan Crary called the "observer" (1990). While relying on stereoscopic vision, Virtual Reality engagement demands "kinesthetic perception". To quote Terry Castle (1995), who writes about phantasmagoria of the 19th Century, Virtual Reality apps like Tilt Brush and videogames like REZ Infinite and Resident Evil 7 trigger an "optical explosion of the senses" that ignites the entire body and, in the process, activates a dialogue between two bodies - the real and the virtual.
Presenter: Angela Ndalianis is a Research Professor of Media and Entertainment, and Director of the Centre for Transformative Media Technologies at Swinburne University of Technology. Her research focuses on entertainment media technologies, their histories and how they mediate our experience of the world: how they impact on embodiment, the senses and perception. Her publications include Neo-Baroque Aesthetics and Contemporary Entertainment (2004), Science Fiction Experiences (2010), The Horror Sensorium: Media and the Senses (2012); and the edited books - The Contemporary Comic Book Superhero (2009); Neo-baroques: From Latin America to the Hollywood Blockbuster (co-edited, 2016); Fans and Videogames: Histories, Fandom, Archives (co-edited, 2017), and The Superhero Symbol (co-edited, 2019).
This webinar is part of the ERCC's 2020 Webinar Series, 'Seeing Double: The Multiple Worlds of Virtual Reality', and is presented in partnership with The University of Melbourne Digital Studio.