The rise of Virtual Reality (VR), Mixed-Reality, and 360-degree storytelling in art and performance contexts necessitates new embodied “languages” as audiences/users are challenged to navigate and become immersed in mediated worlds. Commercial content-creation of immersive, interactive games narrative often rely on tropes of violence and shooting. But as visual artists and theatre practitioners explore these mediums, they are imagining and producing VR environments that offer alternate modes within these platforms, what I am calling “strategies of resistance” to more commercial exploits. I have spent the last five years trying out as much VR as I could, from pruning Bonsai trees to a Squid Game VR game, to a Tempest in VR, and much more. In the examples I highlight here, largely from the initial period of investigation, audiences/users transition from shooting and reacting with violence to having tactical engagements that show an embodied perspective for the form’s development, expansion, and...

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