Page 18 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report

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very immersive devices” to refer to the quality of an element to provide users with the feeling of reality that they experience when interacting with a virtual environment. Language always evolves according to usage and social customs and, given the widespread use of the words “in- mersivo” and “inmersividad,” we are likely to find them in the Real Academia Española dictionary in the near future.
The notion of immersive environment is closely linked to virtual reality, meaning an artificial world usually generated by a computer in which users submerge themselves in some
way (through special devices such as glasses, headphones, gloves, etc.), and in which users can experience certain sensations related to their senses. Of the five traditionally recognize senses, four have been used for some time to create certain fictitious sensations. These senses are sight, hearing, smell and touch.
The notion of immersive environment means an artificial world in which users submerge themselves and experience certain sensations related to their senses.
The idea is not new. In 1935, Science fiction writer Stanley G. Weinbaum had already antic- ipated this possibility in Pygmalion’s Spectacles [Weinbaum]:
But listen—a movie that gives one sight and sound. Suppose now I add taste, smell, even touch, if your interest is taken by the story. Suppose I make it so that you are in the story, you speak to the shadows, and the shadows reply, and instead of being on a screen, the story is all about you, and you are in it. Would that be to make real a dream?
It can be said that the current situation with VR started in 2010, when Palmer Luckey designed the first prototype of the VR head-mounted display that would later be developed into the Oculus Rift. Four years later, Facebook bought his company for €2 billion. Various companies and models of the device emerged later, all
based on the same principle: a head-mounted display that controls the vision of each eye and creates a sensation of three dimensionality. The most complex and expensive models facilitate
a connection to a computer, which generates the images, while the simpler and less expensive models use a securely fixed mobile phone, which displays the two stereo images on the screen.
According to [Telefónica], there are three types of virtual reality, depending on the devices used and the sensation created for the user. The following are the three types:
1. Immersive reality: This is the simulation of reality in an artificial three-dimensional world in which users are so immersed that they perceive it as their real environment. In this environment, users can move, look around and interact with the objects within their reach. The surroundings change according to the user’s movements or interactions with the objects. The system that generates the virtual world must be able to detect the user’s move- ments in real time and present the artificial universe from the user’s point of view at all times, both in relation to the video as well as the audio. If the user interacts with objects, these should react in a way that is consistent with the artificial surroundings (in terms of gravity, elasticity, inertia, etc.). Special devices are usually used to achieve this level of immersion, such as glasses or a head-mounted display that provide a different image to each eye and create a sensation of stereoscopy, headphones that create a sensation of an acoustic field with very spatially located sounds sources, gloves that simulate certain tactile sensa- tions, special suits that facilitate accurate information about each movement made by the different parts of the body or that generate certain sensations of heat, humidity, etc., haptic devices that cause certain vibrations, pulsations or contacts at localized points, robotic systems with
IMMERSIVE CREATIVITY, CREATIVE IMMERSIVITY · JOSÉ MANUEL MENÉNDEZ AND DAVID JIMÉNEZ BERMEJO
Digital Trends in Culture