Inside Arcadia : an immersive, virtual phantasmagoria : an exegesis written in partial completion of a PhD degree in Creative Practice at Massey University, College of Creative Arts
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Date
2022
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Massey University
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Abstract
This research explores Mātiu/Somes Island’s colonial past in the context of the Covid-19
pandemic. The exhibition project, Inside Arcadia, is a hybrid of sculptural installation, performance design and an immersive virtual reality; the latter a 360˚ digital scenography of Mātiu/Somes Island’s historic quarantine and defence sites. These features are experienced interconnectedly while wearing a stereoscopic Head Mounted Display (HMD). The research underpinning Inside Arcadia’s three exhibitions focuses on technological spectralities – the phantom experience of virtual disembodiment wearing the HMD. This discussion relates to defining how these VR digital scenographies comprise a ‘quarantine gothic’. The work of noted academics specialising in video game studies ontology is considered, including Espin Aarseth’s notion of virtual space as an allegory of space and Grant Tavinor’s discussion of IVR as a novel medium. European cultural contexts identify allegory as simply describing one thing by pointing to another, related thing, e.g., Elizabeth M. DeLoughrey’s deployment of allegory referencing Walter Benjamin’s notions of history and ruin. Inside Arcadia recontextualises this in Aotearoa/New Zealand as a gothic mode – a site-specific, digitally
layered 360˚ mediation of historic animal and human quarantine and defence sites. Inside Arcadia also references a quarantine gothic, acknowledging the historic exclusion of Taranaki Whānui from cultural and ecological relations with Mātiu/Somes Island. Terry Castle’s interpretation of allegory as phantasmagoria or exhibiting ghosts in public is
identified as having a key role conceptually and technologically in linking this past with the
COVID-19 pandemic. This context is critical to understanding the role of Inside Arcadia’s HMD technology mediating a ghostly digital avatar whilst leaving a material trace of footprints on the chalk-floor installation. My argument above is demonstrated through Inside Arcadia’s three exhibitions. To help contextualise the field, this research references the works of Lisa Reihana (Ngāpuhi - Ngāti Hine, Ngāi Tu-Te Auru), Brett Graham (Ngāti Koroki Kahukura, Tainui), Sven Mehzoud and Stuart Foster regarding the historical European colonising gaze toward Aotearoa/New Zealand. The installation of my work at separate local sites contributes to understanding spatial porosity and spatial layering wearing the HMD, an
action performing a ghostly avatar. These distinctions are demonstrated through extended
analysis in the final section to this exegesis. As sustained throughout my creative research,
wearing the HMD mediates Inside Arcadia’s layers of virtual space within its physical installation. When considered part of this site-specific palimpsest, Inside Arcadia emerges as an allegory of Mātiu/Somes Island’s colonial past, the haunting echo of a quarantine gothic returned amidst the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Doidge, Malcolm. Inside Arcadia, Matiu/Somes Island (N.Z.), In art, History, COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020- , in art, Installations (Art), Performance art, Virtual reality in art, New Zealand, 21st century, Exhibitions