Dis_place: Reflections on Creating Mixed Reality Performance using Virtual Reality Technologies

Abstract

Dis_place is a mixed reality performance that takes audiences on a journey using a range of virtual reality (VR) technologies, immersive sound, and live dance performance. Through close analysis of my practice as research project, this article presents reflections on the developing creative strategies and approaches to making VR-based mixed reality performance. It traces the creative process in the making of the work, combining links to the VR artwork, video footage of the live performance, and images from the project. This is combined with my observations and analysis of audience feedback. Through this analysis, the writing assesses the affordances of using VR technologies within immersive performance practices, addressing some of the technological, practical, choreographic, and conceptual concerns. Concluding that these technologies have huge potential for offering audiences new embodied encounters that can shift perspectives and produce transformational, intimate, emotive, and unsettling experiences. Dis_place VR should be viewed on a head-mounted display (HMD). It can be accessed through itch.io here and Viveport here.