Performersion|The function of Touch Feedbacks in VR Without Haptic Mechanics

Ramona Mosse, Gerko Egert, Melanie Jame Wolf Haptic feedback for
total immersion is central to many visions of virtual reality
applications. The promise to be in contact with all the senses with
another person in another place in the world fuels many research
branches and start-ups. But previous solutions such as Teslasuit,
Neurolace, Ultrahaptics and much more are extremely complicated,
resource-intensive and complex interfaces. On the other hand, we
all know that artists on stage can touch people in the audience
without physically touching them. The fact that this stage craft
also works in VR applications has been impressively demonstrated by
groups such as MAKROPOL, Bombina Bombast and Polymorf in their
performances. Which transmissions can be found here between
stagecraft and technology development? The dance scholar Gerko
Egert, who has written the current standard work on touch and
touching in dance, and Ramona Mosse, dramaturg and academic
visionary, and the artist Melanie Jame Wolf, whose work focuses on
ideas and questions of persona and staging, discuss utopian and
practical models of intimacy and contact in VR. This format is part
of the Performersion, a cooperation of re:publica and Performing
Arts Programm Berlin.