VCR 11 (1) pp. 53–65 Intellect Limited 2021
Virtual Creativity
Volume 11 Number 1
www.intellectbooks.com 53
© 2021 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. https://doi.org/10.1386/vcr_00042_1
Received 16 December 2020; Accepted 23 February 2021
MATTHEW SANSOM
Sunway University
ZI SIANG SEE
University of Newcastle, NSW
Translating performative
mediated art into virtual
reality: A case study
ABSTRACT
Park benches are distinctive public spaces that invite a temporary pause for thought
and time out from everyday activities and worldly preoccupations. Park Bench
Sojourn is a multimodal arts project that explores the uniqueness and universality
of these spaces and the kinds of experiences they foster. It asks what it means to be
human; surrounded, as we are, by computer technologies and digital media, living
lives that are perpetually ‘connected’ and dispersed through the cloud. It reflects on
how our technologically determined lives and lifestyles conspire against us to find
opportunities to stop, reflect and be witnesses to lived experience. It is a conceptu-
ally playful creative work that shares concerns for health and well-being arising
from the contemporary mindfulness movement and the traditional practices and
worldviews upon which mindfulness draws. The project is based around a range
of experiential sojourns, which require participants to find a bench to sit on and
then take a sojourn, or a number of sojourns from the project’s website, which may
include audio, video, spoken word, or just listening. Other iterations of the project
have included a multimedia gallery installation juxtaposing content from a vari-
ety of sojourns. Regardless of the format, context or specific content, the project
explores ways in which we ‘perform’ ourselves and mediate experience via digital
technologies. In this article, we describe the process of translating this mediated and
performative artwork into a VR prototype and directions for future work.
KEYWORDS
practice-based research
technological
mediation
virtual reality
assistive technology
interdisciplinarity
interaction design
interactive media