Call for Papers: 360°. The Environmental Image in the Visual Arts between Virtual and Augmented Reality
Edited by Elisabetta Modena, Andrea Pinotti and Sofia Pirandello
Download the Call for Paper (PDF)
Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) are now widely known and applied technologies in different contexts, including the arts. Virtual Reality is defined as a 360° immersive environment, accessible with different types of devices, which simulates a world in itself autonomous and separate from the real one. Augmented Reality consists in the intertwining of the virtual and the real, with the superimposition of digital elements on the latter, experienced through the use of various types of devices, such as glasses, tablets and smartphones. Therefore, AR and VR both transform the image into an environment.
Contrary to what one might think at first, the concept of “environmental image” is not directly linked to the tradition of Land Art, environmental art or site-specific practices, nor it has anything to do with the most urgent ecological issues. The various strategies that have prepared the ground for the advent of the virtual and augmented dispositifs have their roots in illusionistic painting and the trompe l'œil tradition, pre-cinematographic optical devices, 3D cinema, and video games. 360° images give the viewer the illusion of "being there" and interacting with an environment without mediation, in some cases through an avatar that can freely move in a space and explore it. On the other hand, the AR images show their "being there" of digital objects in the real space inhabited by the user.
The subjects relating to such environments are no longer just spectators, but rather experiencers who inhabit quasi-real and multisensory worlds that offer to them affordances and agencies, possibilities of performances and actions. Wearing a VR headset, the image entirely corresponds to the totality of the perceptual field, without any frame: we are no longer free to orient our gaze outside the image, as happens when we observe a painting or a movie, but we find ourselves immersed in it. Using an Augmented Reality application, we add digital layers of sense to reality, causing epiphanies.
The environments thus generated in VR and AR challenge the fundamental properties of the iconic (the image as a representation supported by a medium and separated by a framing device), opening up to rhetorics of presentness, immediateness and unframedness. They offer themselves as true and proper "an-icons", which tend to deny ("an") their status of images ("icons"), to present themselves as environments (VR) or objects in the environment (AR).
Contemporary visual arts are one of the most stimulating areas of research and experimentation to be investigated in this regard. Indeed, questions concerning space, environment, happening, and installation are increasingly related to the construction of immersive and non-immersive virtual environments and the use of digital technologies.
Artists like Doug Aitken, Morehshin Allahyari, Halil Altındere, Laurie Anderson, Ed Atkins, Ian Cheng, Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg, Cécile B. Evans, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Paul McCarthy, David OReilly, Luca Pozzi, Jon Rafman, Rachel Rossin, Jakob Kudsk Steensen, Timur Si-Qin, Hito Steyerl, Jordan Wolfson have created artworks experimenting with VR and AR. More recently, projects such as [AR]T, born from the collaboration between Apple and the New Museum of New York, and start-ups such as Acute Art, have engaged internationally renowned artists among whom Marina Abramović, Nick Cave, Olafur Eliasson, Cao Fei, Anish Kapoor, Jeff Koons, Pipilotti Rist and Ai Weiwei. More and more frequently, VR and AR artworks are included in exhibitions, museums, and public events including the Venice Biennale. Important institutions, for example the Tate Modern (London), are developing strategies in order to solve problems of conservation and documentation of these artworks.
This issue of “piano b” focuses on the visual arts, aiming to develop an interdisciplinary debate through the contribution of authors and researchers in different disciplines: history of art, aesthetics, visual culture studies, media studies, curatorial studies and museography.
Some possible themes of investigation are:
- History of VR or AR artworks
- Presentness, immediateness, and unframedness in VR and AR contemporary art
- Research on VR and AR art, concerning the following topics: illusion, transparency, immersivity, interactivity, participation, embodiment, empathy, avatar, multisensoriality, hyper-realism
- VR and AR public art
- Strategies of storytelling in VR and AR art
- Display and conservation issues of VR and AR artworks
- Monographic contributions on artworks in VR and AR, or on artists who have worked with these technologies.
Proposals will be evaluated by the editors of the issue and must be sent as an attachment to the following e-mail address:
Proposals must follow these requirements, or they will not be accepted.
How to propose a contribution
By January 10th 2021 proposals can be sent to redazione.pianob@unibo.it as a file.doc including an abstract (maximum 1500 characters, spaces included), five keywords and a brief biography of the contributor, whose evaluation will be entrusted to the editors of the issue. Abstract, biography and keywords must be submitted in English as well as in the original language of the text. Once confirmation of acceptance of the abstract by the editorial staff has been received, an essay contribution may be prepared and sent, which must not exceed 40,000 characters (notes and spaces included). The text, which may be written in Italian, English or French, must fit in with the editorial rules of the journal. All contributions must be sent to the same e-mail address by April 25th 2021, specifying the title of the proposal, the name and surname of the contributor. Each proposal that will arrive at the editorial office will undergo a double-blind peer-review procedure, being anonymously sent to two referees. If the opinions of the two referees are in contrast, the directors, together with the editors, will decide whether to publish or send to a third referee. The editors will contact the authors to communicate the outcome of the evaluation.
Publication of the issue: July 2021.
