4. Conclusion

Both our case studies feature the category of immersion because the relationship between work and viewer tends not to be mediated by forms of representation (except possibly at a superficial level) but is based primarily on the direct, subliminal manipulation of the viewer’s perception, i.e. on the non-mediated reification of the work’s presence. In both the macro-form and the details, artists apply multiple strategies designed to overcome the critical distance between viewers and work, immersing them in it. In the audience’s perception the media devices disappear, the frames and in general all the forms of mediation dissolve, leaving room for a direct and multimodal contact with the work. This contact involves neither simply the individual nor the combined senses of the viewer but the body as a whole in a kinaesthetic and multimodal manner. However, as we have seen, the conception of the relationship between viewer and work in The Ring involves at least in part a behaviourist paradigm, while the strategies elaborated by Viola are more complex: forgoing a strict interdependence between action and perceptive reaction, they prompt the viewer to undertake an introspective examination, to break free from appearance and immanence and get closer to the self. They are in fact seen to be two different forms of immersion.

Analysing the forms of experience in two heterogeneous contexts such as a Hollywood film and videoart, we have been able to observe communicative strategies which, while referring to a common paradigm, immersion, are actually opposed; they reverberate in the details of the audiovisual construction, of which naturally we have cited only a few examples. This enquiry can be extended to other contexts, other media and forms of communication that characterise the present. However, it is essential always to take into account the complexity of the elements at work and the poly-stratification which is intrinsic to the modalities of management and creation of the experience, at the interface of media structures, communicative strategies, compositional techniques and audiovisual design.