Digital Ectoplasm and the Infinite Architecture of the Fulldome

Suggesting a curious comparison between the Victorian séance and the contemporary world of immersive virtual environments, Mike Phillips, Professor of Interdisciplinary Arts at the University of Plymouth, and Director of Research at i-DAT.org, describes the new capabilities of the fulldome, which uses notions of the automatic movements of the planchette, the wooden token that traverses the alphanumeric surface of the notorious Ouija board, as a model for the development of a quasi-participatory audience interface he dubs the ‘phage’. Clusters of phage can be manipulated by the viewer-occupiers of the dome to instigate all manner of formal, scalar and conceptual transpositionings.