 "Photo: Kimberly Peticolas | Daily Trojan")
Engaging in a virtual reality simulation or experiencing a 360-degree film, immersion is surrounding yourself inside a medium. The applications of immersion are diverse, varying from artistic to therapeutic to journalistic.
Five accomplished guests in very distinct fields met last Wednesday at the USC Gerontology Center to share their opinions about immersion and its significance.
The guests discussed topics such as panoramic movie maps and immersion in nature, briefly touching on the psychological questions raised by the subject.
A small gallery of immersive works, entitled "Degrees of Immersion," features three innovative and interactive displays. The exhibit, located on the first floor of Watt Hall, runs until Thursday, Feb. 28.
The first display, "Virtual Iraq," is a virtual reality simulation created by Albert "Skip" Rizzo, designed to aid the recovery of those with posttraumatic stress disorder.
"Virtual Iraq" is a videogame-like simulation featuring an interactive headset and headphones for the user. It allows a therapist to control various aspects of the user's experience such as the amount of daylight seen, the presence of night vision and the action of the scene.
At the gallery, users can place themselves inside a military tank while the intense sounds of war are heard in the background.
During the discussion, Rizzo assured the audience that the simulation would not retraumatize the patients. The success of Exposure Therapy used in "Virtual Iraq" is supported by the data and currently aiding recovery.
"The principle of exposure is to gradually expose them to what they are afraid of at a pace a person can handle" in order to confront their fears and experiences, Rizzo said.
He said that "a game based environment motivates to give that extra effort, in a way that's fun and engaging."
The second display in the gallery is an interactive moviemap.
Michael Naimark created a three-panel display that guides the user slowly across a location, such as the streets of Jerusalem. The viewer wears 3-D glasses and can change the location to one of four different cities at three different times of day.
Together with the location sound playing in the background, the immersion panorama gives one the feeling of being in the city, while at the same time, clearly distant, somewhat "altering your sense of space and time."
The final display in the gallery shows short films on six panels which completely surround the audience. To see all that is going on, the viewers must continuously turn around.
In what might be a new experience for many, viewers are not told where to look while trying to decipher the plot of the interesting short film.
This technology gives users a freedom quite unusual for the average audience.
USC journalism professor Larry Pryor said at the panel that "each discipline should be free to seeks its own definition and application of immersion."
Because journalists are storytellers who value facts over illusion, appropriate applications of immersion are presently unclear. The potential is exciting although more experimentation is needed, Pryor said.
Naimark filmed a project in Skid Row, using six-panel flat-screen televisions to surround the viewer.
Users then choose whether to focus their attention on the reporter or to watch the citizens interact with each other in the other frames.
This user-directed medium allows the journalist to guide viewers while at the same time experiencing what it would be like to be there.
Immersion provides a "fresh way of being in the world," artist Char Davies said at the panel.
An artistic simulation she created based on breadth and balance gives users a unique floating sensation.
Those who underwent this introspective experience often remarked about the sense of wonder immersion gave them, Davies said.
In her view, immersive experiences are not limited solely to the use of technology. Being surrounded by land or enveloped in the ocean are comparable, perhaps superior, sensations and experiences.
Immersion often provides us with no context or limited context, a phenomenon that Barbara Maria Stafford said is the "problem of referencelessness."
She presented nano images, densely packed with coded information. One example displayed magnified, biological tissue of a whale's retina.
Stafford is interested in how people draw meaning form an image that looks meaningful, but is unknown to them.
Immersion artistically challenges customary perceptions of reality, providing a new medium to represent the world around us.
- "Degrees of Immersion" runs through Thursday at the Helen Lindhurst Fine Arts Gallery.
Admission is free.
