Embodied and Disembodied Voice: Characterizing Nonfiction Discourse in Cinematic-VR

Abstract

Here, live-action ‘cinematic-VR, (also referred to as ‘360° video’) is considered as a distinct hybrid technology, in that photographic image capture and processing methods are coupled with VR head mounted display (HMD) technologies. This study examines cVR for its necessary reformulation of embodiment (and disembodiment) regarding both author and viewer, as they engage with pro-filmic reality via the respective technical apparatuses. For the author, the distinctive cVR production pipeline requires a shift in the treatment of the filmed scenario and their bodily relation to it; for the viewer, established structures of engagement with conventional (frame-bound) linear video are disrupted through the cognitive insertion of their body into the cVR scene. With embodiment as its central thematic concern, this study will provide a theoretical grounding for nonfiction cVR in terms of its epistemological affordances and limitations as a technology. Following a critique of cVR as a yet unresolved theoretical hybrid (as engendering assumptions of both filmic and VR modes of representation), a mixed, primarily phenomenological study will be employed to gain insights into the nature of discourse in nonfiction cVR, and its reformulated dynamics between author and viewer.