Keeping it Real: Encountering Mixed Reality in igloo’s SwanQuake: House

This paper employs the writings of early twentieth-century phenomenologists to examine physical/virtual dualism a century later. It considers the nature of embodied experience in mixed reality environments through an analysis of the author’s encounter with an art installation. The paper reflects on post-Cartesian approaches to the body and new media, noting the resistance of the language of philosophy to the articulation of mixed reality as a concept. If the language of the field constructs dualism, and the cyborgian unitization of human/technology invokes responses of horror or pity, are we prepared socially or culturally to inhabit mixed reality environments as embodied beings?