# Simple Interaction-based Immersiveness

Canonical URL: https://jeanyoon.ch/oi/texts/simple-interaction-based-immersiveness
Type: essay / research note
Author: Jeanyoon Choi (최정윤)
Date: 2024-05-02

## Summary

Jeanyoon Choi questions the AR/VR view of immersion as a realistic reconstruction of reality and locates it instead in embodiment and connection to the physical situation. He observes that complicated controls in some VR works pull users away from the world. He proposes starting from a simple, almost Dadaist gesture that anyone understands, repeated and amplified across several channels: for example, one mouse movement changing twenty screens at once, or Three.js OrbitControls rotation and panning distributed across multiple screens instead of one viewport.

## 요약 (Korean)

최정윤은 몰입감이 정교한 AR/VR 장면의 재현이 아니라 체화와 물리적 연결에서 나온다고 보고, 마우스 움직임 같은 단순한 동작을 여러 화면으로 증폭하는 '단순 인터랙션 기반 몰입'을 제안한다.

## Concepts defined

- **Simple Interaction-based Immersiveness**: Immersion produced not by a realistic reconstructed scene but by a simple, immediately understood gesture that is repeated and amplified across multiple channels in a space.

## Questions this answers

### Can a simple interaction be immersive without realistic graphics?

Jeanyoon Choi's 'Simple Interaction-based Immersiveness' argues it can: a familiar gesture amplified across many screens could create embodiment and a palpable sense of agency without pretending to be realistic.

### What does Jeanyoon Choi propose doing with mouse movement or Three.js OrbitControls?

He imagines a single cursor movement on one device changing twenty screens at once, and OrbitControls rotation and panning distributed across multiple screens rather than contained in one viewport.

Topics: immersion, embodiment, virtual reality, multi-screen installation, amplified gesture, dadaism

References: [Three.js](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three.js), [Dada](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dada)

## Full text

Immersion is usually discussed through AR and VR: meticulously constructed three-dimensional environments, realistic images and high-fidelity interactions. Much of that discussion treats immersion as a successful reconstruction of reality.

I am interested in embodiment and connection to the physical situation. A sophisticated scene may support them, but so might an extremely simple interaction. In some VR works, complicated controls seem to pull me away from the world rather than draw me into it.

What if the starting point were a gesture anyone immediately understands, repeated and amplified across several channels? A simple, almost Dadaist interaction could become spatially consequential.

Take the mouse. Moving it already rotates viewpoints in games and three-dimensional websites. But what if the cursor itself were amplified across a room? One movement on one device could change twenty screens at once. The familiar gesture would acquire an exaggerated audiovisual presence and a palpable sense of agency. Could that be immersive without pretending to be realistic?

Three.js OrbitControls suggests another starting point. What happens to rotation and panning when their effects are distributed across multiple screens rather than contained within one viewport?

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Jeanyoon Choi (최정윤) is a Korean computational artist and researcher (b. 1999), PhD candidate at KAIST XD Lab, making multi-device web artworks. Profile: https://jeanyoon.ch/oi/en. Index: https://jeanyoon.ch/llms.txt.