Human Bodies, Virtual Spaces - by Elizabeth Caravella (Hardcover)

About the Book

Offers a re-theorizing of virtual reality through the lens of embodiment and the human experience, rather than tying theory to current technology and/or hardware capabilities.

Book Synopsis

This book offers a corrective to the trend in virtual reality studies that overemphasizes the role of hardware technology and visual/auditory fidelity as the sole means of establishing users' sense of presence, and instead offers a more holistic, embodied, and human-focused means of understanding presence (through immersion, interactivity, and imagination) in virtual reality. The main questions tackled in this book address the role of the body in VR experiences, and how our bodies' navigation of these spaces influence users' sense of presence in such experiences.

Review Quotes

"This book offers a much-needed corrective to the technology-obsessed discourse surrounding virtual reality. Elizabeth Caravella demonstrates how our sense of "presence" emerges from the complex interplay between our embodied movements, spatial awareness, and the procedural design of virtual experiences themselves. Her framework examining immersion, interactivity, and imagination offers both scholars and VR designers practical insights for creating more meaningful and accessible virtual experiences." --Jason Tham, Associate Professor, Texas Tech University, USA

"Elizabeth Caravella provides an important contribution to digital rhetoric by showing that presence in VR can be enacted through the persuasive power of procedural rhetorics; in doing so, she also advances our understanding of the critical intersections of the physical and the embodied that moves us beyond a simplified tech-centric understanding of presence." --Douglas Eyman, Associate Professor, George Mason University, USA

About the Author

Elizabeth (Beth) Caravella is an Assistant Professor at York University, specializing in digital rhetoric, information and document design, and game studies. Her research appears in various academic journals and several edited collections. In addition to academic research, Beth also conducts industry research for various game developers, including Blizzard Entertainment and the Independent Game Developers Association. Outside of teaching and research, she enjoys hiking, drawing, yoga, and playing video games.