Understanding More-Than-Human Relationships in Interactive VR Installations: A Case Study of Copy Paste Dance

Abstract

Arts and artists can decentre human agency by foregrounding the entanglement between more-than- human matter within their art works. Therefore, artists can question who we are and how we relate to the world by staging processes of becoming-with. I will use this philosophical concept by Donna Haraway as a perspective to move towards a better understanding of how we become-with. The inclusion of the more-than-human makes the concept of becoming-with helpful to look at more-than- human relationships that are situated in interactive art. As a departure point, I use different new materialism theories and Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s bodily account on perception and experience. The goal of this thesis is to explain how more-than-human bodies interact within my case study Copy Paste Dance. This interactive multi-user installation by Monobanda is a performative space in which users can explore their bodies in virtual reality. In this case study research, I apply a concept-driven dispositif analysis to investigate the triangular relationship between screen, image and spectator. The three operationalisations of becoming-with (embodiment, movement and collaboration) function as three lenses that structure this analysis. The research question I aim to answer is: How can we understand becoming-with as a characteristic of spectatorship in the interactive art installation Copy Paste Dance? The results show three different forms of spectatorship: an embodied, performative and co-creative spectatorship. Within these three spectatorships, different processes of becoming- with between more-than-human actors are recognisable. The interactive design sets up new possibilities for embodied experiences that differ from our normative experiences and explores the boundaries of bodies in an online and open virtual environment. Copy Paste Dance lets users rethink bodies and the more-than-human relationships, and the understanding of our body, perception and meaning. Interactive installations such as Copy Paste Dance show the value of artists like Monobanda to understand the possibilities of our human body in relation with more-than-human matter and how we become-with through intra-action.