embodying virtual reality
tactility and self-movement in the work of char davies
VR is a literal enactment of Cartesian ontology, cocooning a person as an isolated subject within a field of sensations and claiming that everything is there, presented to the subject.
Richard Coyne
The possession of a body in space, itself part of the space to be apprehended, and that body capable of self-motion in counterplay with other bodies, is the precondition for a vision of the world.
Hans Jonas
You are floating inside an abstract lattice not unlike the skeletal wireframe models familiar from three-dimensional graphics. You have no visible body at all in the space in front of you, but hear a soundscape of human voices swirling around you as you navigate forward and backward by leaning your body accordingly. Soon the Cartesian gridlines melt away as a forest clearing centering around a great old oak tree appears. Everything in your visual field seems to be constructed of light: branches, trunks, leaves shimmer with a strange luminescence, while in the distance there appears a river of dancing lights. Leaning your body forward, you move toward the boundary of the clearing and pass into another forest zone. You are now enfolded in a play of light and shadow, as leaves phase imperceptibly into darkened blotches and then phase back again, in what seems like a rhythmic perpetuity. Exhaling deeply causes you to sink down through the soil as you follow a stream of tiny lights illuminating the roots of the oak tree.
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