oplevelsesrummets poetik et speciale af signe schou og rené toft multimedier aau forår 2005

233 Pages·2005·1.62 MB·English

by  Signe Schou

oplevelsesrummets poetik
- oplevelse og social interaktion
i digitalt forstærkede rum

et speciale af
signe schou og rené toft

multimedier
aau
forår 2005

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summary

The work of the thesis centres on digitally enhanced space and the idea of bringing computer power
and digital means into use in physical space. The aim is to explore the foundation of creating a potential
for experience based on social interaction and interaction with the digitally enhanced environment
itself.
The space in question is a physical environment, enhanced by digital technology, that discernably reacts
on and integrates the actions of and interaction between the participants. Paradigmatically we are in the
schism between art and entertainment, looking at a new form of experiential space that is a hybrid
space between the physical and the virtual and between the fictional and the social.
The question to be answered is such: Which particulars are central to the creation of an experiential space,
supported by digital technology, in which social interaction and interaction with the environment are crucial to the unfolding
and outcome of the experience? The ideal is to formalise what takes place in the field between space,
perception, social interaction and digital technology and reach a set of basic rules that if followed can
create – and re-create – a potential for experience in a digitally enhanced physical environment.
Unfolding this potential is in the hands of the participants, but the idea is that their interaction with
each other and with the environment can be pointed in specific directions by building certain features
into the environment.
Those features will be defined through a comprehension of the central elements in the question to be
answered: space, digital technology, experience and social interaction. Based on a phenomenological
approach we try to understand these areas through key theorists: Maurice Merleau-Ponty and the
phenomenology of the body help us understand concepts in relation to space and human perception.
Hans Georg Gadamer is the foundation of our concept of experience, and our understanding of the
foundations and processes of social interaction is based on Alfred Schutz. Due to our
phenomenological approach we treat the different elements of the problem with respects to their own

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internal structure and logic. We make explicit the possibilities (as well as the limitations) of digital
technology through exploring different paradigms in the research field: virtual reality, pervasive
computing, augmented reality and tangible bits.
Eclectical method allows us to explore a number of other theoretical approaches as a supplement to
our work with the key elements in order to reach an elaborate comprehension of them. Let us
summarise a few of the central issues:
In trying to describe the mechanisms for interaction in the digitally enhanced experiential space we
explore theories on play and games: We view the digitally enhanced environment in much the same way
as we view a game, namely as a social contract between more than one player that is controlled by a
frameset and rules. The frame and rules represent a way of guiding the potential for experience in a
certain direction, making sure that the actors have an understanding of what to expect. In order to
support immersion in the events that take place in the digitally enhanced experiential space it is also
important with a powerful and correlational secondary world to guide the participants. We base our
understanding of this on J.R.R. Tolkien’s theoretical work on the role of the author’s imagnation in
creating plausible secondary worlds and Janet Murray’s work on immersion in interactive fiction.
We work with multiple understandings of the concepts of space. Perceivable space can be divided into
physical and mental space. Digital technology allows for a third understanding of space: virtual space. It
can be seen as the computer’s way of creating a discernible representation of a possible world. In the
spirit of the Bauhaus school we consider the digital as a material whose defining traits are: intangible,
formable and reversible. As a consequence virtuality can be seen as the computer’s opportunity to make digital
data perceivable in auditive and visual representations. To interact with and in the virtual world we need to
interact through the physical world, i.e. with computer keyboards, and this ‘substitute’ interaction we
call mediated tangibility. Through mediated tangibility it is possible to ‘touch’ the digital representations
and use the experiential potential of both the virtual and the physical space at the same time, a
juxtaposition of spaces we call the space between. Thus the space between marks the potential for interaction
between the participants and the digitally enhanced environment.
Actor-network-theory allows us to construe the participants as well as nonhuman artefacts, e.g. digital
representations, as actors in a network of relations: Through interaction with the surrounding
environment the participants consistute the digital as an actor. Not an actor possessing intentionality,
but an actor with a seemingly autonomous behaviour, which for the participants in a situation

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unfolding will be enough for them to see it as an autonomous entity. But the participants are not only
actors; they are also co-creators of the experiental space: The potential for experience is only entirely
fulfilled through the optimal co-operation between the participants, the secondary world and the
functions of the digitally enhanced environment.
In the final chapter we combine and juxtapose these multiple comprehensions to sufficiently describe
the defining traits of the digitally enhanced experiential environment and to finally word seven basic
rules that if followed can help create a potential for experience in a digitally enhanced environment
through social interaction and interaction with the environment itself.

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summary 2
KAPITEL 1: INDLEDNING OG METODE 10
kapitel 1.1. 11
de første skridt 11
et digitalt bauhaus på museet for samtidskunst 13
olafur eliasson på aros 16
problemet 19
projektets form 20
kapitel 1.2. 23
metode 23
det digitale som materiale – en metodisk forståelse 24
bauhaus: materialet er afgørende for formen 26
eklekticisme som videnskabsteori 28
den videnskabsteoretiske ledetråd: fænomenologi som sådan 30
den kartesianske dualisme og hvad deraf fulgte 32
i begyndelsen var kroppen 33
det performative rum 35
kapitel 1.3. 42
oplevelsesdesign: en indgangsvinkel 42
odins øje 43
orakel 46
pirates! 48
tellalize 51
den magiske rejse eller øv, hvor er det altså hårdt at være prins 52
the key to saint petersburg 54

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GIGANT 56
ping vs. pong 58
mufi 59
fællestræk 62
KAPITEL 2: RUM 66
kapitel 2.0. 67
indledning 67
kapitel 2.1. 69
det fysiske og det mentale rum 69
den geometriske rumforståelse 70
immanuel kant: rummet forudsætter rummet 71
erfaring af rum: en fænomenologisk undersøgelse 74
merleau-ponty: krop og rum som enhed 77
sammenfatning: et foreløbigt rumbegreb 80
kapitel 2.2. 83
det virtuelle rum 83
den besværlige virtualitet 83
den virtuelle virkelighed 86
stedet som ikke er 88
cyberspace som repræsentant for rumoplevelse 90
sammenfatning: medieret håndgribelighed 93
kapitel 2.3. 95
det digitalt forstærkede rum 95
ubiquitous computing 95
computer augmented environment eller blot augmented reality 97

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tangible bits 98
pervasive computing 100
kært barn har mange navne 102
kapitel 2.4. 105
’mellemrum’ 105
KAPITEL 3: RUMMET HVORI MAN SANSER 108
kapitel 3.0. 109
indledning 109
kapitel 3.1. 110
oplevelse og perception 110
perception og det kropsligt oplevede som grundlag for erkendelse 113
bevægelsen fra perception til oplevelse 118
kapitel 3.2. 120
den sekundære verden 120
afstand og fortabelse 122
immersiv virtualitet 124
den restringerede sociale interaktion 125
sammenfatning: det immersive og det refleksive 127
kapitel 3.3. 129
rummet hvori man oplever 129
KAPITEL 4: RUM OG INTERAKTION 133
kapitel 4.0. 134
indledning 134
kapitel 4.1. 136
overgangen fra individet til det sociale 136

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kapitel 4.2. 141
fænomenologien og det sociale 141
intersubjektivitet 141
den anden 143
rum og tid 145
du, vi og de 147
sammenfatning: mennesker sammen 152
kapitel 4.3. 155
spil og leg 155
spil vs. leg 156
huizinga og legens oprindelse i kultur 157
det næste skridt 159
de fire kategorier 160
leg som sindstilstand 161
meningsfulde spil 164
regler 166
spiller & co. 168
sammenfatning: spil og leg som ramme 168
Kapitel 4.4. 171
deltageren og de andre aktører 171
aktørnetværk-teori 172
det digitale som aktør 173
deltageren 174
kapitel 4.5. 177
det socialt forstærkede rum 177

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KAPITEL 5 : DISKUSSION 179
kapitel 5.0. 180
indledning 180
Kapitel 5.1. 183
diskussion og konstruktion 183
kapitel 5.2. 208
oplevelsesrummets poetik 208
kapitel 5.3. 213
afsluttende refleksioner 213
APPENDIX 217
litteraturliste 218

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KAPITEL 1: INDLEDNING OG METODE

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