This book offers a wide-ranging examination of acts of 'virtual embodiment' in performance/gaming/applied contexts that abstract an immersant's sense of physical selfhood by instating a virtual body, body-part or computer-generated avatar. Emergent 'immersive' practices in an increasingly expanding and cross-disciplinary field are coinciding with a wealth of new scientific knowledge in body-ownership and self-attribution. A growing understanding of the way a body constructs its sense of selfhood is intersecting with the historically persistent desire to make an onto-relational link between the body that 'knows' an experience and bodies that cannot know without occupying their unique point of view. The author argues that the desire to empathize with another's ineffable bodily experiences is finding new expression in contexts of particular urgency. For example, patients wishing to communicate their complex physical experiences to their extended networks of support in healthcare, or communities placing policymakers 'inside' vulnerable, marginalized or disenfranchised virtual bodies in an attempt to prompt personal change. This book is intended for students, academics and practitioner-researchers studying or working in the related fields of immersive theatre/art-making, arts-science and VR in applied performance practices.

Autorentext
Liam Jarvis is a researcher, theatre maker and Senior Lecturer at the University of Essex, UK. Since 2007, he has been co-director of Analogue, whose work has toured the UK and Europe. His research and teaching have focused on immersion, embodiment and contemporary participatory practices in (post)digital culture. He has published numerous book chapters and articles in journals such as Performance Research and the International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media. He is currently co-convener of the Intermediality in Theatre & Performance Working Group at the International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR) and a board member for Theatre-Rites.

Inhalt
AcknowledgementsList of IllustrationsList of AbbreviationsChapter 1:  Introduction
Immersion as 'Perceptual Embodiment'The Paradox of 'Presence' in Immersive TheatresTowards Reconciling the Problem of the Spectator's Presence 'Elsewhere'Cognitive Studies, Theatre Scholarship and 'Neuromania'Structure of the BookReferencesPart OneChapter 2: Proto-immersive Discourse & the 'Theatrical Condition'Introduction: Bodily Denial in Art TheoryFriedian/Diderotian Anti-theatricality'Entering' Paintings: Absorptive & Theatrical ImmersionImmersed Bodies as 'Laboratories of Doubt': Catherine Richards, Carsten Höller, Lundahl & SeitlIntersensory Conflict: Catherine Richards' InstallationsStaging Perplexity: Carsten Höller's Umkehrbrille, The Pinocchio Effect and The ForestsImmersant-as-'situated self': Lundahl & Seitl's Symphony of a Missing Room (2009-2014)ConclusionReferencesChapter 3:The Immersive Promise of Becoming [with] the Other BodyIntroduction'Immersive' and 'Immersion': Etymologies and Interdisciplinary DefinitionsConceptualizing Immersed Bodies in PerformanceImmersive Technologies: Genealogies and Ontologies of 'Immersion' in Media TheoryImmersion as 'Totalization''Prioritizing' or Transcending Bodies?: 'Immersion' in the VirtualConclusionReferencesChapter 4:Body-swapping: Self-attribution and Body Transfer Illusions (BTIs)Introduction: If I Were YouThe Narratological Problem: A Survey of Body-swapping in Fiction & its Correlates in Digital CultureActual & Virtual Body-swapping: Out-of-body Experiences (OBEs) and Subtle Bodies-as-self ModelThe Philosophical Problem: Bodies of 'Certainty'?The Expanded Umwelt: Adapting & Referring Human Sensations to Non-human Others'Knowing' Neuroatypical & Self-effacing Bodies?The Physical Problem: Historic Body Illusions and 'Proprioception'Proprioception, Phantom Limb Pain (PLP) & SelfhoodThe Rubber Hand Illusion (RHI): Intersensory Bias & Proprioceptive DriftRisk: Cyber Therapy, Self-protection & Virtual ProxiesConclusionReferencesPart TwoPart Two: OverviewReferencesChapter 5:'Empathy Activism' & Bodying Difference in Postdigital Culture: Jane Gauntlett's In My Shoes & BeAnotherLab's The Machine to be AnotherIntroduction: VR PerformanceVR Auto-phenomenology: Mislocalized Sensation as Applied Perceptual ImmersionJane Gauntlett's In My Shoes: OriginsMentoring and Facilitation First-person Immersion & Person-centered Planning (PCP)BeAnotherLab: The Machine to Be Another & the Library of OurselvesConclusion: 'Empathy', the sine qua non of morality?ReferencesChapter 6:Touching with a Virtualized Hand: Analogue's TransportsIntroduction: Immersion and TremorTransports: The ExperienceTransports: Genealogies'Wizard of Oz' testingUser-testing176Evidence Gathering / EvaluationConclusionReferencesChapter 7:The Suffering Avatar: Vicarity & Resistance in Body-tracked Multi-player GamingIntroduction: Hyper-intercorporeality & Immersion in Anvio's City Z (2017-)Virtualized Distress: Immersive Synchrony in Videogames and BeyondSystem Failure: Uncanny Avatars & Glitches as a Site of RecuperationConclusionConclusion:The Theft of the Dragon Sabre: Bodies at Risk in Digital RealityR...