VR Cinema. Virtual Spectacle As a Dream

Abstract

The essay analyzes the meaning of the term “immersion” in relation
to its application in modern cinema, explores the significance of physiological
sensations in the perception of artistic and entertaining VR content, and
discusses the main features of the aesthetics of 360° spherical video.
In a state of immersion, a person ceases to psychologically perceive the
screen as a repeater of an artificially created world, actually merging with the
surrounding space. This technology, embodied in VR films, poses many still
unresolved issues: the management of the subject’s attention, the role of editing,
the quality of sound, the use of music, film narration, the participation of the
viewer in a film's events, work with light and color.
The VR video format with a 360° overview is used in many areas: music videos,
virtual tours, documentary travels, independent “dives” into art works, digital
painting, and installations. In all these cases, the viewer feels like an observer,
finding himself in the very center of an infinite, all-encompassing virtuality.
In contrast to the traditional film that appeals to the mass consciousness
of the audience, the viewing of VR content is aimed at the personal self-
awareness of the individual. Images perceived in this format have a potentially
higher impact on the human psyche and the human unconscious because they
are remembered more vividly as a result of the complex involvement in the
personalized experience “here and now”. The ability of the author-artist to create
for the viewer an emotionally saturated “dream” — with the psychological fusion
of the subject and the space takes place — is a qualitatively new quality of VR
dives, a feature uncharacteristic of traditional visual arts.