Talk "The Arts of Immersion"

Meeting point: ZHdK, Höhrsaal 1 3.K01 (Main entrance hall)

The history and practices of “immersion” in the arts has long focused on the senses being transformed through new technologies. From the experiments of DADA and the Bauhaus in Europe in the early part of the 20th century to the creation of wrap around projected images and new audio-visual environments in the 1960s till today, we increasingly encounter artistic works that serve as what musician Brian Eno called “triggers for experience”.

This talk will give a broad and accessible overview of this phenomenon that we call immersion. It will highlight historical and contemporary artistic and design works that address critical questions: What happens to our sense of self and our body in new immersive technological environments? Do new kinds of “senses” emerge and what are they? What is immersion for and how could it help us address the burning issues of our present and future? The talk will also discuss the ongoing work of the Immersive Arts Space at the ZHdK – an innovative university-wide art/tech lab that serves as a research, teaching and production platform.

As part of Zurich Art Nov! and in continuation of the talk, the Immersive Arts Space at the ZHdK will be running a recent large scale installation entitled "Fragments of a Conversation" which explores the interplay between the real and the virtual.

Christopher Salter (USA/CH) is an artist, Professor of Immersive Arts and Director of the Immersive Arts Space, ZHdK. He is also Professor Emeritus, Design and Computation Arts at Concordia University in Montreal and from 2014-2022, was Co-Director of the Hexagram network for Research-Creation in Media Arts and Technology, also in Montreal. His artistic work has been seen at exhibitions and festivals internationally such as the Venice Biennale, the Barbican Centre, the Berliner Festspiele/Martin Gropius Bau, Vitra Design Museum, ZKM, the National Art Museum of China, and the Musée d’art Contemporain Montreal, among many others. He is the author of the books Entangled (2010), Alien Agency (2015) and Sensing Machines (2022), all published by the MIT Press.