Immersive practices in the modern cultural space
(world and domestic experience)

Nikiforova Anastasiia ORCID: 0000-0002-8410-9446 PhD in Philosophy Associate professor, Department of Aesthetics and Ethics, Institute of Philosophy of a Human, Herzen State Pedagogical University 19118, Russia, Saint Petersburg, ul. Nab.r. Moika, 48 zuru-s@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

Voronova Natlia ORCID: 0000-0003-0728-757X PhD in Philosophy Associate Professor of the Department of Philosophy, History, Political Science and Law of the State Social and Humanitarian University 30 Zelenaya str., Kolomna, Moscow region, 140411, Russia voronova-ni@mail.ru Other publications by this author

Immersiveness, interactivity and media communication            

The possibilities of media communication are increasing every year: immersiveness and interactivity are firmly embedded in our lives at the sensory level and at the level of social connections. This also applies to artistic creativity, during which new forms of communication between the author of the work and the recipient are born. Modern world and domestic art has long gone beyond the usual framework, beyond the walls of galleries and even streets – now it offers to fully immerse yourself in a new world, a new space, giving the opportunity to create and recreate it at your discretion not only to the author himself, but also to the viewer who becomes a participant in the artistic process: immersiveness along with interactivity has become an integral part of the culture of the XXI century.

  Immersion (from the English "immersion") implies a "deep immersion" of the viewer into an artificially created environment that activates the entire complex of sensory-imaginative perception and creates the effect of presence. In particular, "immersive art is a modern form of 'art full of feelings' that emphasizes participation, interaction, integration and penetration"^[1]. The task of the immersive environment is not just to activate the work of individual sensory organs, but to make them "sound like a whole orchestra", enhancing the brightness of each individual's perception in this integrated interaction ^[2]. An immersive artistic environment, as a rule, creates a great load on sensory and emotional perception, giving vivid sensations, images, emotions ^[3]. At the same time, excessive immersiveness can lead to psycho-emotional burnout and devastation, and the brightness of images and feelings experienced in an artificially created world can lead to loss of interest and disappointment with everyday reality, which can also become a factor in the development of, for example, virtual gaming addiction, when a participant in an immersive computer game seeks to experience strong affects that are not typical for everyday practice.

It is no longer enough for a modern viewer, visitor to an exhibition, performance or museum to be just an observer, he is attracted by the opportunity to be directly in the "fabric" of the work itself, a historical event, to take part in the creation of an artistic image ^[4]. An immersive artistic environment is a "field" for cultivating kinesthetic and emotional experiences and their representation in artistic practices. At the same time, interactivity should not be identified with immersiveness, they are undoubtedly interrelated, but immersiveness is distinguished by a large degree of involvement of the viewer in the very thickness of the artistic material, when the work is not just perceived, but "experienced", the line between authentic reality and reality being broadcast is blurred ^[5]. Moreover, this involvement can also be carried out against the will of the recipient ^[6]. In artistic practices, immersivity is characterized by a greater degree of kinesthetic-visual, sensory-emotional involvement of the recipient, and interactivity is an activity interaction, while the processality and modification of the object of perception from the viewer's interaction with it is a common basis for both of these types of practices ^[7].  The immersive environment changes the viewer's perception, expanding its boundaries. For example, in immersive shows, participants are invited to experience unusual sensations, an "explosion" of emotions, unforgettable impressions, and in computer games, a player can be endowed with superhuman abilities. At an interactive exhibition, a visitor can manipulate various objects, observe their transformation, but at the same time not be immersed in an artificial environment created by the author ^[8].

By themselves, the practices of imersion in culture are not new, but now there are new forms for their expression. Without digital technologies, this would be difficult ^[9], because it was only thanks to them that virtual reality (VR), mixed reality (MR), augmented reality (AR) technologies, etc. appeared ^[10]. For example, for archaic forms of culture, the practices of involvement were an integral component in the context of ritual and ceremonial activity, where "participation" was akin to modern cultural immersion ^[11]. In the mythological environment, the subjective and the objective, the thing and its sign, the spiritual and the material, the emotional sphere from the reflexive did not differ. Such syncretism is also characteristic of modern immersive environments, where the boundaries between the actor and the viewer, the original of the work and its copy, the observer and the creator, collective and personal, fiction and reality, virtual and real are blurred ^[12]. In modern virtual reality, it is also possible to experience very real sensations, in an immersive theater, the viewer is also an actor, there is immersive journalism, immersiveness enters educational processes, becomes part of socio-cultural life no longer as a miracle of technology, but as an expected phenomenon ^[13].

European philosophical thought states that the comprehension of immersive practices is still in its infancy ^[1], but some characteristics can already be given to them.  An immersive artistic environment is understood as a part of the socio-cultural space associated with artistic and aesthetic activities, and having the ability to involve and immerse the subject in new practices for him through the organization and intensification of his kinesthetic and sensory-emotional perception. The immersive environment is undifferentiated, it is characterized by fusion, fusion of psycho-emotional connections, relations of elements of artistic images and their objectification. At the same time, both the mythological and immersive artistic environment does not contribute to reflexivity, a virtual art object can be perceived as real, often there is an identification of the object and its image in the mind of the perceiving subject, but at the same time evaluative values and concepts about the object are not constructed, the viewer in the immersive environment gets stuck at the level of sensualistic perception. At the same time, through immersive technologies, art tries to be closer to the viewer, the visitor.

Functions of immersive artImmersive art is a multi–mediated and multilevel multifunctional education, while a number of functions have an ambivalent meaning.

As the leading functions in relation to the audience , we can distinguish:

Art therapy and a number of related functions, such as compensatory, relaxation, hedonistic and entertaining. In an immersive artistic environment, a person can symbolically free himself from the routine everyday burden of problems and worries, moving into a "different" reality. Similarly, ancient ritual practices were aimed at achieving catharsis, emotional purification. Immersive artistic environments allow you to escape from reality into virtuality, into the imaginary, into the world of illusions, into a game, allow you to achieve liberation and a state of liberation of your being, feel like an invincible hero, or immerse yourself in a state of peace, deep relaxation, euphoria and much more. Group immersive art practices give a sense of belonging to the collective, security, help reduce aggression, fight neuroses, stress.

Aesthetic, formative creative activity. Such artistic practices contribute to the development of aesthetic feelings, awaken the creative nature of the individual, form aesthetic needs. In modern non-classical artistic practices, the aesthetics of the absurd, shocking, shocking, aggressive is also becoming widespread ^[14]. At the same time, the boundaries of art and non-art in an immersive artistic environment are blurred, there may be art objects that are not devoid of aesthetic properties, but do not have a holistic artistic image, and in the process of creating or embodying a work, amateur and professional construction of artistic images are often mixed. For example, this approach in the activities of galleries or museums allows them to hold exhibitions where historical objects and works of art. they are exhibited simultaneously with art objects created by people with disabilities or children. 

Communicative, responsible for the translation of artistic images and the organization of dialogical interaction of the viewer with the work and other participants of immersive art practices with elements of interactivity.

Mnemonic: immersive technologies are based on visualization, appeal to eidetic memory, provoking sound, taste and olfactory associations, kinesthetic representations, visual impressions and modify them. Some immersive techniques are aimed at defragmentation and detailing of visual memory, when, for example, digital enlargements of individual fragments of paintings are made, where perception focuses on the smallest details of the picture.

A signifying-modeling system responsible for the construction of a symbolic-sign system of an immersive environment and for modeling artistic and aesthetic events, processes and conditions in it for the deepest immersion of the viewer in them. This is the creation of an imitating environment, figurative models of reality that do not pretend to be a reliable representation of reality, but satisfy the aesthetic experiences of the subject or group. On the other hand, this possibility is widely used in educational processes where there is a need to place the learner in a simulated environment ^[15].

Suggestive: immersiveness is associated with suggestion, with the imposition of a certain range of sensations and emotional reactions, since it primarily appeals to feelings, not reason. Therefore, immersive technologies have a greater impact on people with undeveloped logical and theoretical thinking, having manipulative functions of suggestive influence. Immersive technologies are aimed at organizing an emotional attitude to the perceived work, the perception of information is based on feelings, emotions, experiences, states. Emotions transmitted in an immersive artistic environment can inspire ideological and emotional content. The immersive environment influences and determines the viewer's perception, which, in turn, does not significantly affect the environment itself.

Sensory-perceptual, with the help of which the subject perceives the artistic environment, his own sensualistic experience and internal sensations as a result of exposure through immersive technologies to his sensory organs and activation of peripheral receptors. The sensory stimuli created in immersive artistic environments (light, sounds, vibrations, touches, etc.) can form both the general modality of perception in group art practices and submodalities, due to the already existing subjective experience of perception, as well as from the attitude to what is happening and concentration of attention when immersed in an immersive environment.

Creatively transformative: an immersive artistic environment creates conditions for experiencing special emotional states in an aesthetically organized creative atmosphere, which can form motivation for further creative activity, gives inspiration, "infects" ideas, images, aspirations for creative self-expression. An immersive artistic environment promotes the development of imagination. Often immersive art practices or even their description and study are focused on the co-creativity of the creators and participants, the artist and the viewer, the author and the reader ^[16].

Subject-representational, which gives the viewer interpretative freedom in the perception of a literary text and the possibility of co-creative reading of it when translating the content into the sensory experience of the subject and its representation through various artistic means of expression. Immersive artistic environments create conditions for emotional and sensory cognition of the subject. Immersive artistic practices push the boundaries of art as an independent and self-sufficient phenomenon into the socio-cultural space and its various spheres of life, leaving a fairly large individual choice for the recipient, depending on the level of his aesthetic and cognitive culture as a whole. Such environments contribute to the extrapolation and representation of the subject's psycho-emotional states and experiences to various artistic forms and their transformation in the process of interactive practices. In immersive artistic practices, figurative representation often prevails over verbal. The viewer is immersed in an artistic event in which there is an authentication of subjective experience and perception with the content of the work. The immersive environment is dominated by representation mechanisms that organize multisensory perception, stimulate sensory-motor, tactile and audio-visual immersion of the subject into the aesthetic and artistic environment, innovative means that expand the possibilities of representation are used (video projections, three-dimensional installations, kinetic objects, integration of abstract images with a certain sound series, animation, augmented reality technologies, etc.). That is, the representative art space itself has changed its form, it is increasingly acquiring a dialogical and procedural character, while remaining conventional. The immersive environment provokes the recipient to self-reference, the commission of mental acts and their self-presentation in aesthetic and artistic practices.

Orientation-disorientation, which is ambivalent and indicates an ambiguous effect on the viewer, his psycho-emotional state and cognitive processes. Often the immersive artistic environment replaces reality, becomes a world of "authentic" illusions, a mythic environment. The viewer may find himself immersed in a simulated space-time environment. Familiar things and objects, processes and their interrelations, detached from their traditional existence and transferred to an artistic and aesthetic environment, can acquire new unusual meanings and connections in the artist's interpretive field, which complicates their identification and understanding by the viewer. The experience and experiences gained during immersion in an immersive environment can lead the recipient to re-evaluate and rebuild their value ideas. Mental disorientation of the viewer can be the direct goal of an immersive performance. Disorientation can also be expressed in the non-discrimination of the original work and its copy. And vice versa, when the immersive environment becomes the basis of cognitive-reflective processes that promote self-determination, collective identification, requires attentiveness and concentration, etc., it helps to understand and determine the aspect of artistic, aesthetic and axiological comprehension of various cultural phenomena.

Affective-ecstatic, which promotes group and personal transcendence, forms an attitude to aesthetic and artistic objects when interacting with them. In immersive artistic environments, there may be strong emotionogenic stimuli that cause ecstatic states, primarily enthusiastic, since it is this state that leads the participant to a sense of satisfaction. Something similar was characteristic of ancient bacchanalian cults, magical-ritual ecstasies, carnival cultures. Exalted states contribute to the satisfaction of human desires. Many immersive technologies are aimed at bringing the participant to an altered state of consciousness to experience the unusual and vivid sensations promised by the organizers. When organizing immersive artistic environments, it is necessary to take into account the neurophysiological features of the psyche of different categories of participants and visitors of such events, especially with regard to the children's audience, since children, due to emotional lability, can have affective reactions even to rather weak stimuli. Elementary, when a small child is immersed in a 3-D multimedia immersive environment with a sharp change and dynamics of images, "seasickness" may occur, he is literally seasick, his brain does not distinguish between a real situation and a simulated one in a virtual digital space, the vestibular apparatus becomes disoriented, as a result, headaches, sleep disorders, appetite may occur, irritability, increased excitability or apathy, etc. ^[3].

Immersive Practices in Modern Russian Culture

Despite the fact that today this direction attracts considerable attention, immersion has been present and is present in all types of art. For example, the Impressionists wanted to share their impressions of the contemplation of the surrounding beauty, expressionism captures emotion, passion. History knows the appearance of color music, hepenings, dynamic art objects, street art. Each style in artistic practice, on the one hand, somehow tries to convey not so much meaning as feeling, to unfold the action of the plot in such a way as to make you empathize, think, act. On the other hand, virtual reality, online games have long absorbed the attention of a significant part of the world's population, becoming a more interesting and relevant version of life for them: everything is made–believe in the game, there is no responsibility, you can always "win back", the risks of wrong choice are minimized. A complete immersion in an artificially created safe world without real suffering, illness, aging fully meets a person's dreams of eternal life, of paradise lost. So the emergence of immersive spaces was only a matter of time and technology.

Immersive spaces in a modern city are zones in cultural centers, public places, theaters, museums, historical parks, and the urban landscape, where conditions are created for immersion in a different environment through audiovisual and kinesthetic means. The immersiveness associated with the use of media technologies ^[17] ultimately leads to a transformation of the understanding of the very essence of space and time. Space and time become ways of interpreting images, plots, and with them – emotions, feelings that the author of the work or show wants to show.

        The aesthetic practice of immersion extends to a wide range of cultural phenomena and can take a variety of forms. For example, the activities of the historical park "Bastion" (Sortavala) and the settlement "Svargas" (Vyborg) fit perfectly into the concept of "immersion" in the life and everyday life of another time and culture. Dedicated to the era of the early Middle Ages, these spaces offer visitors to touch real objects, costumes, food, lifestyle, craft practices ^[18]. "In the public space, cultural and historical reconstruction acts as a form of broadcasting knowledge about the past, which is transmitted through the formation of visual, sensory and emotional images. In modern Russia, educational and educational programs using historical reconstruction are presented quite widely - these are public lectures, lessons of "living history" ... historical reconstruction circles and demonstration events in schools, historical and educational festivals ("Orel Fortress", "Belgorod Trait", "River of Time", "The Past speaks"), combining entertainment and educational formats" ^[19].

The need to develop media capabilities in the museum also implies the creation and development of interactive programs and zones in which the visitor's interaction with cultural heritage objects and artistic images would be maximized ^[20].  Here, each organization goes its own way, although it is hardly possible to overcome the "visitor – object" border in the museum in full.  Much, alas, depends on funding. It will be much more difficult for a small local history museum to organize immersive programs than for a large or private one. For example, the exhibition of fictional creatures "Bestiary" and "Museum of Untruth" (St. Petersburg) are completely created author's worlds, where each object has its own place and is not located on the showcase. The absence of a glass barrier, as well as labels, helps to perceive these exhibitions as self-sufficient spaces.

It may seem that classical visual art cannot be actualized and it is available only for contemplation, but works do not arise by themselves, they are always inscribed in the socio-cultural context, in the "scenography" of the environment that gave birth to them and presents them ^[21]. Nevertheless, exhibitions and specially created objects/installations/digital content, as well as theatrical productions, meet the goals of immersiveness much more. For example, the exhibition taking place in 2023 on the stage of the park "Russia is My Story" (St. Petersburg) adapts classical pictorial images and shows the "revived canvases" of Manet, Renoir, Degas, presented on large digital screens accompanied by music by Debussy, Scriabin and other impressionist composers.

Combining different artistic means serve to achieve one goal – immersing the visitor in the "inner world" of painting. The program of the show included ten canvases that were "revived" with the help of computer graphics.  On the one hand, it gives a new unusual visualization experience. On the other hand, such hypertrophy of pictorial images can subsequently play a cruel joke with the originals themselves, who will look their pale likenesses against the background of this multimedia show.

Immersive exhibitions in Russia are rare guests. Nevertheless, immersive installations touring the world in the format of full immersion appeared with us. In 2018, Android Jones presented the installation Samskara in collaboration with the Russian studio 360ART at the Artplay Design Center (Moscow). The exhibition featured large-scale canvases and spherical cinemas surrounding the audience with audio-visual content. In European and American cultural life, where immersion is perceived more habitually, foundations and museums are ready to allocate significant funds for the creation of such exhibitions. For example, in 2021, the Superblue Art Center was created: a space of immersive installations for a new generation (Miami). David Hockney's multisensory show "More and Closer" at the Lightroom Gallery (London, 2023), the Labyrinth "SunForceOceanLife" to Ernest Net (Houston) have gained worldwide fame. The world experience of immersion has shown that it is possible to combine the incongruous: in 2021, the TeamLab team of artists presented a project that combined art and bath procedures. "TeamLab Reconnect: Art with Rinkan Sauna Roppongi" (Tokyo) — this "immersion exhibition", "purification exhibition" and pure enjoyment of artistic images perfectly fit into Japanese culture - after cleansing the body, you cleanse the mind and enjoy the unclouded beauty of installations and art objects, which is quite in the spirit of Zen Buddhist practices. However, in this case, devoid of religious meaning.

It's hard to imagine anything like this in Russia. At the same time, the differences between domestic and foreign immersive practices are not limited to technical capabilities. Domestic projects, in order to be understood and accepted, should refer to such cultural traditions and mental constructs that are close to the majority of the population of our homeland. In the projects of European and American authors, post-art is implemented to a greater extent, based on the aesthetic paradigms of the non-objective, unconscious, affective or other conceptual programs. In domestic projects, as will be shown below, preference is given to topics related to the history of culture, famous literary works, acute personal experiences.

An interesting experience of working with "intangible" matters – time and sound – is presented in 2023 at the installation exhibition "Feel the Octave" (Tula). Dedicated to the history of the Tula Oktava plant, the exhibition is more like a mini-performance, allowing visitors to experiment with sound. And the installations from Kuflex#1 in the WORKSHOP space (Nizhny Novgorod, 2023) demonstrate experiments with the entire spectrum of audiovisual means, with the help of which, according to the authors, the digital and real worlds should be united ^[22]. The visitor can transform matter into sound, color, and also move around the universe, real and fictional.

As for the north-west of Russia, interesting innovations are being implemented here. In 2020, a unique project was launched – the "Victory Train", which traveled from Moscow to Vladivostok and along the entire front line of World War II, was created in honor of the 75th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War. This is the brainchild of the Nevsky Batalist team: a museum train, an excursion train, it combines both educational and memorial space.

 On the territory of the Lenfilm film Studio (St. Petersburg, 2022), a large-scale installation "Missing in the Newsreel" was created, dedicated to the activities of cameramen, photojournalists, employees of film studios who worked during the Great Patriotic War. The audio tours and quests that take place on it help to feel the atmosphere of the war years, learn more about the work of cinema. A similar project with an immersive effect is a three–dimensional panorama “Memory speaks. The Road through War" (St. Petersburg, 2019), connected the possibilities of classical dioramas and panoramas, expanding them to their almost complete connection with reality. 

         In 2022, an international exhibition of joint installations of Russia and China (St. Petersburg) was also held. The huge exhibition – the fruit of the collaboration of the two authors – raised apocalyptic themes, offering visitors shocking and vivid images in the format of video installations, sculptures, paintings and graphics.  The two cores of this event were the installation "Belshazzar's Feast" (a dance floor with screens and cyclic videos), as well as the space of the film installation "The Parable of the Pearl of Great Price": in this way, the authors manipulated the minds of viewers accustomed to discos, cinema visits and endless viewing of video content.

Immersive theater immerses the viewer into the space of acting, removing the barrier in the form of a stage, curtain. As a rule, such performances take place with a small number of spectators – only in this case it is possible to create an atmosphere of "presence" in the event that unfolds before the eyes of the participants. Immersiveness implies personal contact, a space of dialogue that does not go beyond the room. 

  Anna Karenina (Kazan, 2018) is considered a classic of immersive performance in Russia producer Diana Safarova and the Living City Foundation: two floors of a huge building were given over to the theater space, in each room of which the plot of the famous novel took place: the characters talked, went about their business, and the audience moved around the building, watching the scenes of their lives. In the historical park "Russia — My History", the installation performance "SMOKE" was successfully staged (Tyumen, 2022). The canvas of the performance was graphically a novel by Olga Lavrentieva, referring to the events of the Great Patriotic War. At the exposition, documents, music, and wartime life exist simultaneously in real and virtual spaces. The exhibition materializes the memories of the author and the characters of the novel, helping the visitor to feel his personal participation in the events presented in the play. The whole exhibition is both a theater and a memorial space, and visitors themselves help to revive these memories.   

Among the experimental performances can be called "Good evening! Call Tanya!", accompanied by wine tasting and candlelit dinner, the restobare "Maybe" (St. Petersburg, 2023) - immersiveness in the restaurant business is already becoming a new trend.

The performance "Another City" (Petersburg) directed by Semyon Alexandrovsky and Pop-up Theater is generally more like an excursion and takes place on the embankments of rivers and canals of St. Petersburg. Participants receive a map with a route and an audio file that should be listened to with headphones. In the recording, you can hear the sounds of the embankments of Amsterdam, Paris or Venice – depending on which location was chosen. This approach demonstrates to us empirically selected interaction scenarios that have been repeatedly used in European interactive mediation practices ^[23].

In the immersive show "Faceless" (St. Petersburg), which has been held for several seasons, the action takes place simultaneously in several halls with different actors, storylines and variable finales. The audience is promised full involvement in the events taking place with complete anonymity (each visitor is given a mask hiding his face), and vip ticket holders are guaranteed theatrical experience and access to the bar.

ConclusionsAs the leading functions of immersive art in relation to the audience, one can distinguish: art-therapeutic and a number of related functions, such as compensatory, relaxation, hedonistic-entertaining; aesthetic, communicative, mnemonic, significative-modeling, suggestive, sensory-perceptual, creatively transformative, subjective-representational, orientation-disorientation, affective-ecstatic.

All functions are in complex interaction, while a number of functions have ambivalent meaning, exerting an ambiguous influence on the participants of immersive practices. On the one hand, they contribute to the involvement and fascination of the viewer with the artistic environment, eventfulness, dialogicity and co-creation with works, art objects and their creators; expand the receptive experience, activating synesthetic relationships, promoting empathic healing and empathy, lead to new forms of self-perception and event-based self-reference. Thanks to immersive practices, communication in the artistic environment increases.  On the other hand, they can also lead to a loss of interest in the intellectual and semantic load of artistic works when they are not mastered, but simply consumed, acquiring a hedonistic-playful character. Due to hyperstimulation of the entire complex of sensory-emotional perception, attachment to very strong and vivid sensations and impressions can develop, which in turn can lead to a loss of interest in the everyday environment, traditional artistic practices and original works of art of the past. It is often not the content and semantic-symbolic component that is paramount, but the entertainment of artistic immersive practices as a form of leisure, and art as an "attraction" ^[4].

Summing up the results of the study, it can be concluded that the popularity of immersive artistic media among the mass audience is explained by the orientation of modern culture on audio-visual channels of information and eidetic memory. Immersive artistic practices appeal to popular culture, and at the same time create the possibility of a unique experience and personal-subjective experience when immersed in an artificially created environment, which is more a space for artistic utterances, and not for completed works.