Digital conditions
What Happens to Experience in a Digital Space?
Curtis Golonka Hykade Kondek
Panel debate with Jeffrey Döring, Chris Kondek, Wanda Golonka, Robin Curtis, Andreas Hykade, Philipp Stang
Hosts Philipp Stangl and Jeffrey Döring begin by asking whether virtual reality (VR) can ever be described. Although VR glasses and head-mounted devices are constantly available, the academic discourse about what makes so-called virtual realities original does not seem to have run its full course. The panelists then have an opportunity to deliver brief statements about sensual or physical experience in digital space.
In her short presentation, Robin Curtis focuses on the »digital turn,« which is seen as marking a new era. Has the emergence of digital media really contributed to making humanist phenomena like empathy and hermeneutics obsolete? Drawing on theories such as that of Max Tegmark, she argues that humans can recognize the boundaries of their own perceptions, whereas machines process data. She concludes that we should first reflect on our own potential for perception, as the digital marker was not passed in the nineteen-nineties but possibly earlier.
Wanda Golonka returns to the question of physical experience and the idea of the vanishing body. She takes the symposium participants backstage, where they can spend a minute in total darkness sensing their own presence. This new spatial arrangement created on stage then inspires an inquiry into the possible constitution of digital space.
Kathrin Passig refers to the boundlessness of digital space, which can always be expanded. She also observes that a new, more democratic conversational setting has now been established on the stage (in contrast to the previous segregation between the panel and the audience in the auditorium), similar to the situation found in digital forums. Chris Kondek, on the other hand, maintains that digital space, the Internet, is primarily defined by »access« or »denial.« In this respect, it is hardly different from other exclusive spaces predicated on admission or a refusal to admit.
Triggered by the immersive experience in the dark, the discussion then turns to the phenomenon of immersion. Andreas Hykade doubts that immersion is a new, twenty-first century phenomenon. Experience in so-called virtual or augmented realities is little different from the constitution of virtual worlds when reading, listening to music, or going to the theatre. This centers the debate on the recipient’s imaginative powers, without which virtual realities would also have little chance of unfolding their impact. Finally, he asks what is original about virtual reality compared with other art forms, and whether the mix and transdisciplinarity of diverse art practices, among them VR, are not far more fruitful.