Floating Differently

In an earlier post, I put out the idea that the Immersive Effect is felt by degrees which can be charted on something like a linear scale which progresses from not-Immersed to Immersed. The culminating effect being marked by entering a dissociative state, what I called a kind of floating.

Quite correctly, others have suggested that film & theatre are capable of this, too, but we typically call this effect “suspension of disbelief.” (If floating isn’t possible in film then how do I explain the millions of wriggly children who sit through three-hour Marvel movies on uncomfortable chairs? Good point, Internet.) So, is suspension of disbelief just the correct name for my “kind of floating”? Yes and no. The term can absolutely be applied to Immersive but no, they don’t mean exactly the same thing. In the case of Immersive, it’s a type of suspension of disbelief that’s arrived at differently from film & theatre and, as a result, has a unique feel of its own.

Suspension of disbelief with film & theatre comes from being so absorbed in the story that audiences lose themselves in what Coleridge calls a moment of “poetic faith.” A fully Immersive experience (being embodied within the story’s frame) can result in something similar, maybe slightly intensified but - and this is a key difference - Immersive has a participatory dimension where the audience is required to “do” something. This participatory element can take a variety of forms, such as rummaging through elaborate sets or chasing after characters (like with the exploratory theatre show SLEEP NO MORE or the baffling but wonderful LIFE AND TRUST) or solving puzzles, like with escape rooms. Other forms require still less activity like with Immersive contemporary art exhibitions where you wander around highly decorated museum spaces and can touch stuff without getting kicked out.  Whatever the form and tasks happen to be, all Immersive shows have them.

At the heart of the participatory element seems to be “engagement” in the Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Martin Seligman senses of the term. A subjective flow state where time stops and tasks are so absorbing that self-consciousness is lost. This is what I mean by “floating” and it’s also a side of Immersive’s suspension of disbelief that film, theatre and novels lack. They all absorb audiences to the point where they lose certain awarenesses. Film & theatre audiences, in particular, often lose their physical awareness, whereas Immersive audiences usually don't.

Seligman writes about another interesting side to this kind of engagement in his book “Flourish” where he observes that in a flow state thought, feeling and pleasure aren’t felt in the moment; they’re “absent” and pleasure is “only retrospective.” I’ve noticed this reaction post-show from audiences at Immersive shows, too. My children are particularly honest along these lines and I get different answers from them when I ask mid-event “Are you having fun?” rather than post-event “Was that fun?”.  But then again their answers might be biased according to which answer they think will lead to them getting a cookie, which is a whole other thing. Regardless, thought and feeling are present in the moment of film & theatre’s suspensions of disbelief. Not always with Immersive.

So, if the other story-telling artforms don’t share this participatory feature, are we still talking about suspension of disbelief? Yes. Film & theatre suspend disbelief by absorbing you in a story. With Immersive, belief is suspended through a process of absorption in both the story and whatever it is you have to "do". 

So, yeah. They all make you float. But with Immersive, you float differently.  

Funny, that…