Glossary: Immersion [Animate Assembly] (Kirschner, 2022)
HD, 14min, sound
This video-essay redefines the term "immersion" for the animateassembly.org glossary of animation:
If immersion stands - in the context of immersive technology - for absorption and a diminishing ability of the brain to distinguish between physical reality and its simulation; and further for the collapse of critical distance, which allows for effective training and modulation, then Unica Zürn's illustrated text "The House of Illnesses" rethinks these conditions by posing a different problem: immersion here is not figured as absorption in something, to be remedied through critical distance from something; it rather concerns the continuous structuration of embodied existence by relations of power as ongoing damage. It refers to an effort not only to life with this damage, but to abandon the notion of “cure” within the matrix of what re-produces illness. (voiceover: Blaise Kirschner)
Animate Assembly is organised by Verina Gfader, Anke Hennig, Esther Leslie and Edgar Schmitz. Contributors include Ramon Amaro, Ama Josephine Budge, Federico Campagna, Rebecca Carson, Mike Cooter, Kazuhiro Goshima, Minori Ishida, Gabriele Jutz, Roshanak Kheshti, Joon Yang Kim, Blaise Kirschner, Kyoo Lee (Q), Deborah Levitt, Ruth Maclennan, Sara Mameni, Miltos Manetas, Angela Melitopoulos, Jonathan Miles, W. J. T. Mitchell, Michael Newman, Nikolaus Perneczky, Lea Porsager, Pete Jiadong Qiang, Marie-France Raphael, Paul Roquet, Kohei Saito, Caroline Sebilleau, Tomoko Tamari, Ueno Toshiya, Jalal Toufic.
