This reading connects immersion to interactivity because Victor actually argues that real interaction should go beyond just touching a screen, “pictures under glass” like phones, tablets, and flat screens reduce human interaction to simple sliding and tapping, while ignoring how our hands actually work through touching, gripping, holding, and movement. I found this really interesting because it made me think about how much we rely on technology that removes physical experience instead of improving it. It also reminded me of the movie WALL-E, where humans stop moving, stop engaging with the world, and become fully dependent on screens and machines. This made me question if we are slowly doing the same thing in real life by ignoring our own human capabilities?
I actually made a project for my Understanding Interactive Media class based on this reading, and I called it Felt. My project focuses on immersion and accessibility because while the article asks us to question how technology limits human capabilities, screens and tech. can also create access for people with disabilities. This made me ask: how can we design interaction in a way that creates both immersion and inclusion? Felt is built on the idea that immersion is not visual, it’s actually physical and it goes beyond the use of vision and the reliance on it. (we see this a lot in many different installations like temLab) I chose to focus on blind people that already experience space differently because they rely more on sound, touch, memory, and balance. For sighted people, vision takes over making us forget how much the rest of the body can do.