Forme estetiche della VR teatrale. La mappa del cuore di Lea Melandri in VR di Ateliersi fra liveness e pratica spettatoriale

VR technologies occupy a peculiar position in the contemporary media landscape. Periodically, they seem to be at the dawn of a popularisation which, however, struggles to actualise. They have a central place in marketing discourses, in the film and video game industries, in cultural heritage and artistic experimentation, but their actual diffusion have hardly achieved the status of a mass phenomenon. This eccentricity to the mainstream does not necessarily make it an object of the elite since it embodies a conflict between imaginary and empirical uses where numerous tensions of contemporary aesthetic forms clash. This exploratory study investigates the role of the VR medium theatrical performance, analysing how spectators construct their spectatorial position between the theatrical dispositif and the virtual reality medium. The research asks what kind of liveness is involved in this genre of performance. The case study is La Mappa del Cuore di Lea Melandri in VR, by Ateliersi The case is investigated through in-depth interviews with spectators and the creators of the performance. The results show that the frame of the VR medium as “attraction” is still central. Furthermore, it emerges how the audience recognises a specific gradient of liveness to the work given by the coconstruction of the vision and the entrance into the performance space, while mentioning copresence with the audience and simultaneity among the main deficiencies.