The embodiment of mediated transformation: presence technologies and their effects on the notion of medium

Abstract

This dissertation criticizes the dominant paradigm such as ocularcentrism, sensorial realism and cognitivism in the study of presence. Presence is usually regarded as the illusion of non-mediation or the subjective feeling of being in a remote environment. The definition of presence has been argued among engineers, psychologists and theoreticians in communication, but most have focused on the quantitative measure of presence. They premise the application of the Cartesian viewpoint: the separation between the mind and body. Furthermore, some media archaeological studies on virtual reality, such as the prestigious study of Oliver Grau, are based on the dominant paradigm of presence studies, tracing the lineage of innovations of presence technologies. It is usually admitted that the digital form is dematerialized so that it seems to promise to set us free from the body and the physical world. Furthermore, dematerialization annihilates the intrinsic properties of each medium so that various forms can be merged into a platform. Such properties are considered unique in digital media and the term “new media” represents drawing a line between new and old media, marking the discontinuity. However, with such a viewpoint it is impossible to explain the new paradigm that underlines embodiment, tactility, physicality, corporeality and performativity in immersive media, tangible media and data visualization. For this, it is necessary to establish an alternative framework in order to explain the new paradigm and maintain continuity with old media. Phenomenology emerged as an alternative theory to Cartesian dualism. It imposes the pre-given “life-world” and experiences as “lived body,” in that bodily experience constitutes our perception of our environ-ment. The perception is not the totality of sensory data, but the embodied body’s act. I survey the phenome-nology of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty, Ihde’s existential-phenomenology of technology and Sobchack’s phe-nomeno...