Being-There: Merging Physical and Virtual Worlds

Abstract

This thesis introduces Interactive Landscapes as an emergent form of pervasive media. These Interactive Landscapes overlap physical and virtual space and imply tangible connections between these spaces within public settings. This thesis explores how these tangible connections offer new ways of experience and production of space, or rather how it affects Being-there. For this, it uses Heidegger's notion of Dasein. A comparative affordance analysis of two Interactive Landscapes reveals how these Interactive Landscapes afford different aspects of Dasein and constitute a unification of the body, mind and environment. The study shows, how this phenomenon effectuates a substantially different behaviour than mobile hybrid spaces that have been an object of study to the field of humanities for some time. The embodiment afforded by these Interactive Landscapes allows for a far more direct manipulation of the physical environment than the screen-based interactions of the mobile phone. Through the interactions with these landscapes, people come to know about their surroundings and themselves. By actively engaging with these environments, the user produces the space he is a part of. In this production of space lays the construction of Dasein.