Immersion

As a medium, Augmented Reality is per se an immersive approach of overlaid and integrated information layers, but audiovisual immersion is one of the core characteristics of lifeClipper3. The visitor enters a fantastic world, equipped with a headset to extend the surroundings audiovisually.

Ernest Adams distinguishes three types of immersion in his article “Postmodernism and the Three Types of Immersion” on Gamasutra in 2004: Senso-motoric immersion, strategic immersion and narrative immersion. Fast and intense, senso-motoric immersion is impossible to implement in lifeClipper3 since the visitor is bound to real space and time and wears a backpack and a headset. But the limitations and alterations to sight and hearing force the visitor to be more attentive, to explore and to get used to the new medium, and thus provide considerable support for adventure situations.

To date, there is no long-term logic built into the lifeClipper3 system and therefore strategic immersion cannot be achieved. However, visitors are immersed in a state of flow when exploring their surroundings, detecting interactions, and finding out about their own identity.

The most significant type of immersion for lifeClipper3 is narrative immersion based on “Environmental Storytelling”.

Three different types of systems are combined in the dramaturgy to tell the story: location-sensitive, temporal-iterative and emerging-intelligent. In addition to the virtual dimension, the park itself offers many qualities and unforeseen incidents and encounters.

Read more:
Immersion.pdf  (German)