Digital Body Living Beside Screen

Résumé En

The masterpiece “The Invention of Morel” by Bioy Casares is among several science fiction novels and films that put forth the idea of devices capable of recreating realities or bringing fantasy worlds to life, dwelling somewhere between illusion and reality.But the ghostly representation of human body, and the oscillation between presence and absence are no longer confined to works of fantasy stories. Advancements in science and technology have brought telepresence devices (Telephones, Video Games, AR and VR) to everyday life. Digital technology has tapped into new potentials and has created new paradigms of make-believes: we live and communicate with beings without flesh, digital beings whose presence emanates uncertainty, or beings in digital flesh, such as Hatsune Miku, Tupac Shakur, and even with realistic robots, the Geminoid Hiroshi Ishiguro.This suggests a human being whose presence / communication overcomes carnal barriers of time and space, thanks to immersion systems such as holographs, ghost pepper, etc. Thus, as if through magic, the body seems inscribed in a total, real and virtual space, capable of achieving ubiquity.Immersive systems are capable of creating more profound and fuller experiences, through the introduction of both visual and audio senses.Hearing acts as an auditory space indicator and navigational system, providing the body with coordinates and distance information. Leveraging this potential, and through the refinement of sound phenomena in an acoustic system, it is possible to transform a virtual space into a perceptual bodily experience.Through curation of a combination of physical and virtual movements of dynamic sound systems, and using head mount sound displays in conjunction with stationary devices, this project aims to reach a ubiquitous immersive soundscape.Virtual concerts are an example of such immersive experiences, where a corporeality takes place between synthetic sound and multiple virtual duplicates of the same sound, projected across a physical soundscape. Although pioneering pieces such as Philips Pavilion by Le Corbusier and Xenakis (1958) have long ago put forth this idea, many new systems are emerging in the Wave Field Synthesis (WFS) to advance this practice, namely holophonic and “contiguous phantom imaging” 4D Sound systems. We undertake a comprehensive review of various systems in an attempt to capture and affirm the expressive potential provided by technologies through the presence / absence of the body.