"The ‘Phygital’ as the Virtual Real: The Role of Mixed Realities in Contemporary Art”

In this contribution, I discuss mixed reality (MR) and the prominent role
it plays in contemporary art, with particular reference to strikingly staged
cutting-edge mixed reality experiences by the avant-garde theater collective,
Rimini Protokoll, and by two pioneering digital artists, Manuel Rossner
and Marie Lienhard. Using mixed reality, a subcategory of extended
reality (XR), they blend as well as modify reality along a continuum ranging
from augmented reality (AR) via augmented visuality (AV) to virtual
reality (VR). In their individual works, mixed reality interpolates in varying
degrees between the real and the virtual. I show how their exemplary
mixed installations and so-called immersive art experiences such as Monet’s
Garden focus on distinctive aspects of artistic mixed reality projects, most
prominently on immersion, interaction, incorporation, and illusion. I further
explore how changed ideas and concepts of art as well a viewer behavior
have combined to stoke the current boom and popularity of mixed
reality projects in the contemporary arts. Immersive and interactive mixed
reality installations are not autonomous artworks, rather they are iterations
of the basic network idea. On that foundation, they blend the virtual
and the real, the physical and the digital (hence ‘phygital’); they bring forth
new art forms and contrivances that no longer exist independent of their
operating context and the presence and participation (to different degrees)
of their audiences. Mixed reality transcends, obliterates, and dissolves the
boundaries and categories of the traditional, modern staging realm to excite
and please younger, and more diverse audiences.
Keywords
Immersive art experience, mixed reality, immersion, illusion, interaction,
incorporation, phygital, virtual real

#MixedRealities #AugmentedReality #VirtualReality #XR #Phygital #ContemporaryMediaArt