Seeing and feeling in VR: bodily perception in the gaps between layered realities

This essay explores the layering of perceptual information across the real and the virtual that occurs when bodies cohabit virtual environments using new commodity-priced virtual reality technologies. Specifically, we take an embodied somatic and dance perspective to better understand and characterise the perceptual gaps between how bodies are seen and how they are felt in virtual environments. Our discussion derives from observations and analysis of participant feedback obtained from a series of workshops run in July 2018 using a new multi-person VR framework. This research has opened up a fascinating fundamental question: can we harness VR’s potential to awaken new modes of perception that enable people to better know their body?