Multisensory Technologies in Contemporary Art: Bodily Involvement and the Boundaries of Human Perception
Abstract
The article examines multisensory technologies in contemporary VR and XR art. The relevance of the study is determined by the fact that such technologies are increasingly used not only to intensify the viewer’s experience, but also to model the experience of another body. The aim of the article is to show which sensory and technological mechanisms produce the effect of “becoming other” and where the limits of this effect lie. The analysis focuses on three projects: In the Eyes of the Animal by Marshmallow Laser Feast, Tree by New Reality Company, and Symbiosis by Polymorf. Methodologically, the article draws on Don Ihde’s post phenomenology and Carlos Velasco and Marianna Obrist’s xSense model; artists’ descriptions, interviews, critical texts, and participant responses are also used as additional material. The novelty of the study lies in comparing the three cases through a single analytical framework: types of relations between body and technology, sensory channels, congruence, dominance, and overload. The article concludes that such projects do not provide direct access to nonhuman perception but temporarily disrupt the habitual human sensory organization and make its limits visible. The results of the study may be used in the analysis of multisensory installations, VR/XR projects, and curatorial practices related to the viewer’s embodied experience.
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