10.54103/ai/22448
The present volume Immersions and Dives: From the Environment to Virtual Reality of the journal AN-ICON: Studies in Environmental Images is divided into two issues, each one dedicated to a specific thematic analysis, originated by the same conceptual core. The volume reflects on the concept of immersivity, which has become increasingly prominent in many different fields, including contemporary art. The constant reference to immersive experience is redefining the boundaries of artistic practice and fruition, highlighting the complex relationships between art, environments, and human perception.
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Sofia Pirandello
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AN-ICON. Studies in Environmental Images [ISSN 2785-7433]
Augmented reality
Immersions and Dives: From the Environment to Virtual Reality, Vol. 2, no. I (2023)
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Augmented reality
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Zuliani, S., Senza cornice: Spazi e tempi dell’installazione (Roma: Arshake, 2015).
Immersions and Dives: From the Environment to Virtual Reality, Vol. 2, no. I (2023)
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2
               Immersions and
               Dives: From the
Environment to Virtual Reality,
Vol. 2, no. I (2023)
by Roberto P. Malaspina, Elisabetta Modena
and Sofia Pirandello Immersion
                   Dives
                   Installation
                   Virtual reality
                   Augmented reality




                   Issue №1                Year 2023
                   → Immersions and Dives: From
                   the Environment to Virtual Reality
                   Edited by Roberto P. Malaspina,
                   Elisabetta Modena, and Sofia Pirandello
Introduction
Immersions and Dives: From
the Environment to Virtual
Reality, Vol. 2, no. I (2023)1
ROBERTO P. MALASPINA, Università degli Studi di Milano – https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2372-789X
ELISABETTA MODENA, Università degli Studi di Pavia – https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9582-4875
SOFIA PIRANDELLO, Università degli Studi di Milano – https://orcid.org/0009-0004-4477-9199
https://doi.org/10.54103/ai/22448


                                    Introduction Vol. 2, no. I (2023)

                              The present volume Immersions and Dives:
                 From the Environment to Virtual Reality of the journal AN-
                 ICON: Studies in Environmental Images is divided into two
                 issues, each one dedicated to a specific thematic analy-
                 sis, originated by the same conceptual core. The volume
                 reflects on the concept of immersivity, which has become
                 increasingly prominent in many different fields, including
                 contemporary art. The constant reference to immersive
                 experience is redefining the boundaries of artistic practice
Keywords         Immersion                          Dives                           Installation
                 Virtual reality                    Augmented reality

        1 This essay is the result of research activity developed within the frame of the project AN-
        ICON. An-Iconology: History, Theory, and Practices of Environmental Images. AN-ICON has
        received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s
        Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement No. [834033 AN-ICON])
        and is hosted by the Department of Philosophy “Piero Martinetti” of the University of Milan
        in the frame of the project “Dipartimenti di Eccellenza 2023-2027” sponsored by Ministero
        dell’Università e della Ricerca (MUR). The authors Roberto P. Malaspina, Elisabetta Modena,
        and Sofia Pirandello equally contributed to this paper.

To quote this essay: R. P. Malaspina, E. Modena, S. Pirandello, “Introduction: Immersions and Dives:
From the Environment to Virtual Reality, Vol. 2, no. I,” AN-ICON. Studies in Environmental Images [ISSN
2785-7433] 2, no. I (2023): 4-10, https://doi.org/10.54103/ai/22448.

ROBERTO P. MALASPINA, ELISABETTA
MODENA, AND SOFIA PIRANDELLO                       4                                          AN-ICON
                and fruition, highlighting the complex relationships between
                art, environments, and human perception.
                             The first issue of the volume, Immersions, dis-
                cusses the recent “immersive trend” as applied to artis-
                tic perceptual dynamics and to display design. Through a
                perspective that combines both history and theory of art,
                Immersions provides a broad and heterogeneous mapping
                of the many uses of this concept, exploring it in different
                historical contexts and through various methodologies
                of analysis.
                             The second issue, Dives, will shift the concep-
                tual focus to action. Diving, understood as a preparatory
                and essential movement of immersion, becomes a meta-
                phor for investigating in particular those performative ar-
                tistic practices that have engaged in various bodily forms
                with immersive environments. Dives also includes a non-
                peer-reviewed section devoted to contributions by artists
                and independent researchers who present their strategy
                to dive into immersive spaces and environments, in order
                to physically explore them.

                                 Immersions

                            In recent years we have witnessed a growing
               fashion for every experience to be “immersive.” At least
               this is what the rhetoric of communication and marketing
               suggests, promising immersions of various kinds, but with
               a common denominator that goes beyond a general idea
               of attention as absorption:2 the feeling of being physically
               enveloped and interactively engaged in a multisensory en-
               vironment.3 Hence, we speak of immersive environments,

       2 W. Wolf, W. Bernhardt, A. Mahler, eds., Immersion and Distance: Aesthetic Illusion in
       Literature and Other Media (Amsterdam-New York: Rodopi, 2013).
       3 A. Griffiths, Shivers Down Your Spine: Cinema, Museums, and the Immersive View (New
       York: Columbia University Press, 2013); F. Liptay, B. Dogramaci, eds., Immersion in the Visual
       Arts and Media (Leiden-Boston: Brill Rodopi, 2016).

ROBERTO P. MALASPINA, ELISABETTA
MODENA, AND SOFIA PIRANDELLO                     5                                           AN-ICON
                immersive cinema and video, immersive exhibitions and
                installations, and so on. The term “immersion” has only
                been used with some regularity since the 1990s in relation
                to technologies such as Virtual Reality, which was then
                being experimented for the first time outside the labora-
                tories where it was developed in the late 1960s.4 However,
                some researchers have attempted to reconstruct a possible
                genealogy of immersive environments much earlier. Like
                a subterranean river, the immersive aesthetic experience
                would resurface in different periods, beginning with Pa-
                leolithic cave paintings, through Pompeian painting and
                trompe-l’œil, and then from Baroque illusionistic ceiling
                paintings to multimedia installations.5 A decisive moment
                for the design of these environments has been traced back
                to the 19th century, in particular the obsession for ὅραμα
                (from the ancient Greek “view”), which saw the spread of
                devices such as the panorama, the diorama, the cosmora-
                ma, etc.,6 responsible for the construction of an “emotional
                geography.”7 However, one of the most significant moments
                in this history, which has not yet been sufficiently explored
                in this debate,8 is that of the installations and environments
                that appeared in the first decades of the 20th century in
                the works of the avant-garde artists of the time. In 1976,
                invited by Vittorio Gregotti, Germano Celant curated the
                exhibition Ambiente/Arte: Dal Futurismo alla Body Art, held
                at the Central Pavilion in the Giardini for the 37th Venice
                Biennale. In this occasion, the history of environments was

       4 I. Sutherland, “The Ultimate Display,” Proceedings of the IFIP Congress 65. Washington 1
       (1965): 506-508; I. Sutherland, “A Head-Mounted Three-Dimensional Display,” AFIPS Fall Joint
       Computer Conference Proceeding 33 (Washington: Thompson Books, 1968): 757-64.
       5 J. Nechvatal, Immersive Ideals/Critical Distances: A Study of the Affinity between Artistic
       Ideologies Based in Virtual Reality and Previous Immersive Idioms (Saarbrücken: Lambert
       Academic Publishing, 2009).
       6 O. Grau, Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion (Cambridge-London: The MIT Press, 2003);
       S. Bordini, Storia del panorama (Roma: Edizioni Nuova Cultura, 2006).
       7 G. Bruno, Atlas of Emotions: Journeys in Art, Architecture, and Film (New York: Verso, 2000).
       8 E. Modena, “Immersi nell’irreale: Prospettive an-iconiche sull’arte contemporanea
       dall’ambiente alla realtà virtuale,” Carte semiotiche. Rivista internazionale di semiotica e teoria
       dell’immagine 7 (2021): 71-78.

ROBERTO P. MALASPINA, ELISABETTA
MODENA, AND SOFIA PIRANDELLO                       6                                            AN-ICON
               reconstructed from the beginning of the 20th century, when
               avant-garde artists began to create “wall boxes on a human
               scale.”9 These environments allowed the visitor to physi-
               cally enter the work, going beyond the frame.10 Since then,
               artists have increasingly experimented with installations11
               and works that aim to produce enveloping, participatory
               and interactive physical experiences,12 also making use of
               new technologies such as Virtual, Augmented and Mixed
               Reality. The exhibition itself, as an immersive device, has
               played a significant role throughout the 20th venues, from
               the Venice Biennale to the Kassel documenta, is increasing-
               ly blurring the boundaries between artwork and exhibition.13
               The physical presence of the visitor in the multisensory
               space of the artwork,14 as well as their role as activator
               and experiencer, is central to any discussion of immersive
               contemporary art.
                             Indeed, immersive installations bring to different
               forms of narration and storytelling,15 presenting themselves
               both as an exclusive space (separated from the rest of the
               world) and an inclusive context (as they literally absorb the
               visitor). Within the environment (analogue, digital​,​or mixed),


      9 G. Celant, ed., Ambiente/Arte: Dal Futurismo alla Body Art: Biennale Arte 1976 (Venezia: La
      Biennale): p. 6.
      10 G. Celant, “La cornice: dal simbolismo alla land art,” in G. Celant, ed., Il limite svelato:
      Artista, cornice, pubblico (Milano: Electa, 1981); D. Ferrari, A. Pinotti, eds., La cornice: Storie,
      teorie, testi (Milano: Johan & Levi, 2018); P. Conte, Unframing Aesthetics (Milano-Udine:
      Mimesis International, 2020).
      11 C. Bishop, Installation Art: A Critical History (New York: Routledge, 2005).
      12 I. Kabakov, M. Tupitsyn, V. Tupitsyn, “About Installation,” Art Journal 58, no. 4 (1999): 62-
      73. https://doi.org/10.1080/00043249.1999.10791966; J. Reiss, From Margin to Center: The
      Spaces of Installation Art (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001); C. Bishop, Installation Art: A Critical
      History (New York: Routledge, 2005); B. Groys, “Politics of Installation,” E-flux journal reader
      2009 (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2009); S. Zuliani, Senza cornice: Spazi e tempi dell’installazione
      (Roma: Arshake, 2015).
      13 E. Filipovic, M., van Hal, S. Ovstebo, eds., The Biennial Reader: An Anthology on Large-
      scale Perennial Exhibitions of Contemporary Art (Ostfildernn: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2010).
      14 C. Bishop, Installation Art: A Critical History; A. Griffiths, Shivers Down Your Spine; F. Liptay,
      B. Dogramaci, eds., Immersion in the Visual Arts and Media.
      15 M. Bal, “Narrative Inside Out: Louise Bourgeois’ Spider as Theoretical Object,” Oxford
      Art Journal 22, no. 2 (1999): 103-126. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxartj/22.2.101; M. Bal, Louise
      Bourgeois’ Spider: The Architecture of Art-writing (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2001);
      Allen, N., Combrink, L., “Character (and absence) as a narrative key in installation art,”
      Literator 40, no. 1 (2019): 1-10. https://doi.org/10.4102/lit.v40i1.1449.

ROBERTO P. MALASPINA, ELISABETTA
MODENA, AND SOFIA PIRANDELLO                       7                                            AN-ICON
               at times artists leave clues or hints of stories; at other times,
               they build real scripts linked to real or plausible events or
               based on fictional characters – think of the growing role of
               science fiction in building utopian or dystopian narratives.16
                             Nowadays also the debate on how best to pre-
               serve and respect the authenticity of complex installations is
               compelling, considering the need to respect their time and
               site specificity.17
                             As a matter of fact, the latest generation of im-
               mersive technologies, together with the most recent theories
               of the environmentalisation of the image,18 suggest that we
               reconsider Boris Groys’s assertion about the possibility of
               interpreting installation as image and image as installation,19
               thus confronting art history and theory with visual studies.
                             In this respect, this first volume brings togeth-
               er different strategies and fields of analysis that have rea-
               soned about the processes involved. In her essay, Mieke
               Bal places a strong emphasis on exhibition practices as key
               for understanding the contemporary realm. Bal calls for the
               recognition of the interplay between past and present, advo-
               cating for visitor engagement that solicits affective empathic
               attitudes. Through her video installation Don Quijote: Sad
               Countenances, she stresses the transformative potential of
               art-making as a tool for cultural analysis.
                             Giuliana Bruno challenges the established no-
               tion of immersion itself by introducing the concept of “en-
               vironmental projection.” Bruno invites us to reconsider the
               ecological dimensions of representation, particularly in terms

      16 D. Byrne-Smith, ed., Documents of Contemporary Art: Science Fiction (London: White
      Chapel Gallery, 2020).
      17 B. Ferriani, M. Pugliese, Monumenti effimeri: Storia e conservazione delle installazioni
      (Milano: Electa, 2009).
      18 A. Pinotti, Alla soglia dell’immagine: Da Narciso alla realtà virtuale (Turin: Einaudi, 2021).
      19 B. Groys, “Multiple Authorship” in B. Vanderlinden, E. Filipovic, eds. The Manifesta
      Decade: Debates on Contemporary Art Exhibitions and Biennials in Post-Wall Europe
      (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2005); E. Modena, “Immersi nell’irreale: Prospettive an-iconiche
      sull’arte contemporanea dall’ambiente alla realtà virtuale,” Carte semiotiche. Rivista
      internazionale di semiotica e teoria dell’immagine 7 (2021): 71-78.

ROBERTO P. MALASPINA, ELISABETTA
MODENA, AND SOFIA PIRANDELLO                       8                                             AN-ICON
             of movement and scale. She questions the relationship be-
             tween immersion and magnification, ultimately proposing
             the notion of “empathic projection” as a means to transcend
             human-centric perspectives in immersive experiences.
                           Lucia Corrain’s text delves into the immersive
             qualities of art, particularly in the Chamber of the Giants by
             Giulio Romano in Mantua (Italy). Corrain explores the phe-
             nomenological and ontological aspects of immersion in art,
             emphasizing the viewer’s sense of awe and estrangement.
                           Filippo Fimiani analyzes allegories of immersion
             through the lens of the LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS series, con-
             sidering in particular the episode Fish Night. He examines
             the cultural topos of immersive experience, highlighting the
             ambivalent relationship between living bodies, images, and
             media in deep time-bending scenarios.
                           Roberto Pinto shifts the focus to the intersec-
             tion of art and history through Jeremy Deller’s immersive
             performance We Are Here Because We Are Here. Deller’s
             work exemplifies a change in commemorating historical
             events, focusing on individual stories and emotions rather
             than traditional heroic narratives. The artwork engages the
             audience on a personal level, prompting reflection and emo-
             tional connection, ultimately redefining the role of public art
             in collective memory.
                           Francesco Tedeschi’s paper takes the reader on a
             journey through Italian environmental art, examining the trans-
             formation of space by artists such as Lucio Fontana, Gruppo
             T, and others in the 1950s and 1960s. Tedeschi’s investiga-
             tion focuses on the evolving link between interior and exterior
             spaces, the concept of passage, and the reasons which invite
             viewers to traverse rather than merely inhabit spaces.
                          Annette Urban explores the blurred boundaries
             between art objects, space, and beholders in VR art and
             exhibitions. She discusses how VR art challenges tradi-
             tional subject-object relationships and often embeds itself
ROBERTO P. MALASPINA, ELISABETTA
MODENA, AND SOFIA PIRANDELLO         9                              AN-ICON
              into physical exhibition spaces, resulting in potentiated
              environmentalisation.
                            Stefano Velotti’s suggestion to revert the usu-
              al perspective on the concept of “immersivity,” consists in
              introducing the idea of “an-immersivity,” namely the onto-
              logical condition of individuals who are immersed in reality
              but aware of it. In order to do so, he discusses the limits
              and characteristics of immersive VR experiences, the role
              of art, and the tension between control and uncontrollability
              in immersive encounters.
                            Lastly, Giorgio Zanchetti examines the per-
              sistence of the locution “looking glass,” – that primarily comes
              from Lewis Carroll’s novel – which highlights the duality of
              a glass surface as a means of viewing the world and as an
              object to be observed. Italian artists of the 20th century, such
              as Lucio Fontana and Luciano Fabro, frequently explored
              three attitudes: looking through the glass, observing the re-
              flected image in a mirror, and examining the glass itself as
              a tool for presenting and representing spaces.

                           The editors of the volume and the AN-ICON proj-
              ect would like to thank Pirelli HangarBicocca, Giovanna Ama-
              dasi, and Roberta Tenconi for their essential contribution to
              the organisation of the conference “Immersed in the Work.
              From Environment to Virtual Reality” (Milan, June 13th -16th
              2022), a seminal occasion of reflection for the development
              of this thematic double issue.




ROBERTO P. MALASPINA, ELISABETTA
MODENA, AND SOFIA PIRANDELLO          10                              AN-ICON
AN-ICON has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. Grant agreement No. 834033 AN-ICON.
The project is hosted by the Department of Philosophy “Piero Martinetti” – Department of Excellence at the State University of Milan.



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