Digital Embodiment and the Arts Exploring Hybrid Spaces through Emerging Technologies

A timely examination of the use ofemerging technologies in the arts in recentdecades, from the first wave of Virtual Realitythrough to the current use of Mixed, Augmentedand Extended Realities. It highlights the necessityof understanding technological experiencesthrough the assumption that all experience isembodied. An explosion of digital culture andexperience has most certainly given artists andcreative practitioners new ways of exploring ahybridisation of creative practices with access totechnological tools only previously dreamt of.Further, there are a number of threads arounddigital embodiment and its centrality to the digitalexperience. The book is divided into 3: Section 1 explores thewhole notion of embodied experience through astudy of space and virtuality, imagination, andtechnology. Section 2 lays the ground for a moreexplicit understanding of the role the body has inour engagement with the digital technologiesfocussing on three distinct bodies: the gravitational body, the virtual body, and finally thehybrid body. Section 3 is split into threechronological chapters in terms of technologicaldevelopments, that of VR, Virtual Worlds, andAugmented, Mixed, and Extended Realities. While individual aspects and themes covered here can be found in some recent books, there is little that places digital embodiment within the arts in the way this book does. A unique synthesis.