Immersion across media opens our perception to altered states of consciousness. Far from disconnecting us from our surroundings, these experiences reframe the ways we connect to the world and to others. The constant onslaught of new technologies—each allegedly reaching closer to the holy grail of perfect immersion—provides a confusing yet stimulating playground for creators. Myriad new media forms redefine our immersive habits and patterns of gratification. Classical theories of immersion, focused on perceptual illusions or ideal flow states, cannot easily account for this confusing remix of audiovisual forms and practices. In an age where the production of technologies and forms accelerates, States of Immersion Across Media invites readers to slow down and reflect on immersive practices, both new and old, their impact on our bodies, how they attune our affects, the disruptions they afford, and the creative encounters they generate.

Table of Contents:
Table of Contents Acknowledgements Introduction: Carl Therrien, Philippe Bédard, and Alanna Thain Section 1: Altered States 1. Immersive Situativity: Perspectives on Being In/Out of Sync, Tom Poljan.ek and Laura Katharina Mücke 2. Douglas Trumbull and the Technological Aesthetic of Brainstorm: Charles R. Acland 3. Dual Cognitive Approach, Eugene Kukshinov 4. Emotional and Immersive Experiences in Films and Games: Looking into the Perceptual Model and Striving for a Motivational Theory, Maxime Deslongchamps-Gagnon 5. Interaction and Immersion Logics in Encounters: Coalescence of Bodies in a Liquid Space, Claire Chatelet and Mathieu Pradat 6. Facing Oneself: Out-of-Body Experience, Immersion, and the Remediation of Cinema through Virtual Reality, Pietro Conte 7. The Time it Takes to Tend Virtual Succulents: ImmersingOneself in a Playthrough of Viridi, Gabriel Tremblay-Gaudette Section 2: Finding New Frames 8. The Many Births of Virtual Reality, Philippe Bédard 9. Seeing by Automobility: Protoautomobility, Immersion, the Traveller-Spectator, and the Phantom Ride, 1897–1912, Michael J. T. Stock 10. From Participation to Immersion: Promotional Tactics around Tricked and Dynamic Seats in the Film Theatre, Aude Weber-Houde 11. Surface and Depth: The Picture Plane as a Site of Immersivity in the Digital Age, C. E. Harris 12. “Let’s Cross This Portal Together”: Immersion Mechanisms in VR Performances and Their Current Limitations, Ágnes Karolina Bakk 13. Immersive Materiality and Television Production in The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (2019), Dan Leberg and Sabrina Sauer 14. “More Mbappé Than Me?”: Soccer Video Games, Athletic Bodies, and the Performative Displacement, Daniele Iannucci Section 3: The Edge of Sense(s) 15. Walter Benjamin on the Threshold of Immersion, Sonny Walbrou 16. Correlations of Immersion and Authenticity in the Experience of Fencing in Hellish Quart and For Honor, Micha. Mochocki and Ignacy Nowicki 17. New Heritage Ecologies: Embracing Entanglement and Complexity in Virtual Heritage Immersion, Elina Lex 18. The Contribution of Narrative Puzzles to Player Challenge-Based Immersion: A Case Study of Abzû, Gabrielle Trépanier-Jobin and Mathilde Savoie 19. The Opposite of Elsewhere: Home Video as Virtual Reality, Madison Brown 20. Video Game Immersion as Bodily Atmospheric Attunement, Andrea Andiloro Section 4: Interviews 21. Beyond Frontiers: An Interview with Félix Lajeunesse (Co-founder and Chief Creative Off icer, Felix & Paul Studios) Edited by Philippe Bédard 22. Producing Intravene: An Experiment in Immersive Audio, Brenda Longfellow 23. A Much-Needed Conversation with Women Working in VR, Edited and moderated by Caroline Klimek 24. Espace & Présence: An Interview with Guillaume Perreault-Roy, Edited by Philippe Bédard 25. The Ultimate Potential of Immersive Media: An Interview with Kent Bye (Host of the Voices of VR Podcast), Edited by Philippe Bédard 26. An interview with Skawennati, Edited by Carl Therrien Indices