‘몰입형 미디어아트(immersive media art)’의 빛과 그림자 -수묵산수화 심미체험과 비교를 통해서

Abstract

Immersive media art exhibitions that present a new spectacle created by digital technology have become popular in recent years. This study investigates the nature of “immersion” or “presence” that is often associated with the experience of immersive media art and discusses its potentials and limits as an aesthetic experience. In this regard, this study compares and analyzes a number of immersive media art works and traditional ink wash paintings that represent “water” as their main theme, and discusses how their perspectives on nature and approaches to viewers fundamentally differ. Immersive media art focuses on the visible features of water and amplifies the amount and intensity of sensory stimuli presented to viewers, whereas traditional ink wash painting captures the organic relationship between water and other elements in nature. While water becomes an object of visual appreciation in immersive media art, it becomes an object of contemplation in ink wash painting. Immersive media art typically employs the strategy of immediacy by eliminating physical distance and overwhelming viewers with maximized sensory input. On the other hand, ink wash landscape painting offers vacant spaces through which viewers can form their own mental, emotional and intellectual relationships with the work. This study examines the gains and losses of immersive media art as an aesthetic experience. The significance of distance in aesthetic experience, the relationship between physical immersion and psychological immersion, and the limitation of interactivity in media art are examined. This will elucidate what has often been overlooked in immersive art as well as the aesthetic meaning and value that can be rediscovered in traditional ink wash painting.