How do the theatre makers PIPS: lab and Urland/CREW investigate Stefano Gualeni’s concept that virtual reality is an ‘ontological tool’ that redefines human-technology relationships?

Abstract

This thesis offers a critical and philosophical reflection on how the theatre makers PIPS:lab, Urland and CREW use virtual reality as an “ontological tool”, a term coined by Italian game designer and philosopher Stefano Gualeni in his text Virtual Worlds as Philosophical Tools: How to Philosophize with a Digital Hammer (2015). The research decodes the fragments of ontology in relation to Heideggerian philosophy and additional postphenomenological ideas that are divided between two sub-topics: Space and the body. These two thematic guidelines identify how the theatre makers use specific framing techniques to blur or expose how technology frames our own ontological reality, which Gualeni defines as a transition from traditional ontologies to virtual ontologies (Gualeni 2015). The research hypothesises that virtual realities potential as an ontological tool reveals the human necessity to have agency, feel present and understand the mechanics of one’s own virtual reality experience; in order to escape any applied definition of existential dread to the contextualisation of human-technology relationships.