A Theory on the Ontology of Site-Reliant Immersive Environments
Abstract
This paper theorizes the poetics of specific artistic environments seen as immersive site-reliant events. It seeks to address a new ontological and topological perspective on lived experiences, moving beyond the mere phenomena of appearance towards the spatial becoming of localized events. It marks a shared vocabulary between art and architecture regarding the creation of spaces, which frames a new art practice fundamentally architecturalized, and defined as chorotopical art. This is constituted by immersive experiences becoming temporal events within actual architectural settings; places. The concept of immersion expands beyond the digitally constructed reality and sees the virtual as a complementary element of the actual in the formation of the real. The research attempts to establish a modality of immersive spatial experience which is sensory, intimate, multiple, and bears particular reference to the philosophy of the “event” as theorized by Alain Badiou. The paper uses practice as a self-reflective case study to establish that chorotopical art is a practice fed by the socially and architecturally informed lived encounters that aims to disrupt actions generated by habit.