Immersive Network Research & Development Program 2023

Embodiment, AI and the perception of the real

As creative media technologies continue to evolve, we are seeing expansion in the ways in which participants’ bodies are drawn into the produced experiences. Embodiment, on the one hand, is a persistent state of being human, and so any media experience is to some extent embodied. However, the affordances of immersive and interactive media technologies enable more explicit forms of embodiment, where movement and multi-sensory approaches can be incorporated into the progress of a work. 

These technological developments that enable embodiment are being increasingly used by documentarians to experiment with representations of the real. The nonfiction project is expanding forwards, as makers and audiences not only examine reality but constitute it, at times through physical interaction. While there might seem a tension between documenting the real and offering an experience, tensions can offer creative avenues for exploration. 

Early immersive media experimentation often purported to offer a fully virtual reality, distinct from ‘real’ reality. Now, we see increasingly creative approaches that ask critical questions of our perception of reality and toy with slippages, many of which use embodied practices to do so. 

The MIT Open Documentary Lab will explore several projects at this year’s festival to consider how embodiment is being creatively explored by documentarians and artists, and how it is being received by audiences. A number of framing questions will guide this research:

• How are makers considering and using embodiment, in conscious and subconscious ways, to deliver experiences? 
• Why are makers exploring embodiment, and does this connect directly with representation of the real?
• What does it mean to represent reality in an experiential, embodied way?
• What tools, techniques and technologies are makers using to create embodied experiences? 
• How have these tools and techniques evolved in recent years, and are we categorizing them in new ways?
• How are audiences responding to projects that in big or small ways involve their bodies? 
• Do makers and audiences feel that new forms of knowledge are communicated through embodied interaction?
• How does embodied interaction impact upon the perception of reality/realities among audiences?
• What role does discomfort have to play in embodied experiences?
• What is the difference between creatively intentional discomfort, and discomfort or awkwardness that arises unintentionally?
• Do they have different outcomes? (Discomfort here may mean physical, emotional or intellectual discomfort).

In addition, MIT Open Documentary Lab acknowledges that artificial intelligence (AI) has experienced a particular surge in the last year or so, in terms of development of relevant tools and practices for the production of media experiences. In 2018, the inaugural year of the IDFA/MIT ODL research partnership, the research focus was AI and authorship, and it is timely after five years to reflect on progress and ask some new questions. This year the researchers intend to take an additional focus on how AI is being used among the prototypes, within the context of the above questions as well as more broadly. How are makers co-creating with AI, and what reflexive practices are apparent? How are makers imagining and critiquing worlds in which we co-habit with AI? And does AI have anything to offer in the realm of embodiment, or is this a peculiarly human endeavor? 

Our methodology will consist of artist interviews before and after the festival, audience testing at the festival and our own analysis of selected project prototypes. Audience testing will consist of surveys using Likert scales (e.g. how strongly do you agree with the statement “I felt bodily present in the experience”, on a scale of 1-5?), some extended interviews, and discussion during curated ‘artist conversations’. 

Projects we will focus on:

Shadowtime 

Traversing the Mist 

Voice in My Head 

Turbulence 

The Vivid Unknown

Fresh Memories: The Look 

Emperor

(this conversation is) Off The Record

William Quail’s Pyramid

One Two