Pathways VR - a somatic walk in Malta’s shifting terrain

Room: SAB 3

Pathways VR is a one-to-one guided VR walking experience that offers audiences the experience of walking along lines of newly infrastructural developments on the island of Malta.

Participants will be invited to wear a VR headset and view a 360 video of an onsite performance walk, whilst being guided to produce physical movements of their own around the installation space.

The performance research project Pathways (2021) aims at awakening public awareness of the ways in which large infrastructure projects affect pedestrian movement. Starting from the perspective that walking is an activity that enables humans to be sensorially connected and associated with their habitats, the interactive VR experience invites participants to feel how urban design influences their desire to walk, and thus connect with their environment.

The multi-sensorial experience invites a visual and aural displacement, playfully critiquing the issues of urban planning and the sensory immersion promised by VR technologies.

Artists-Researchers Bios

Paula Guzzanti lectures in choreographic practices at the University of Malta. Her artistic work brings together dance improvisation, collaborative performance-making, affect theory, and sensorial activism. She completed her practice-as-research PhD in dance at Queen’s University Belfast.

John Darcy lectures in Digital Media at Queen’s University Belfast. His research interests include technologically mediated live performance, voice-based intermedia artwork, and site-specific storytelling and song-making. John currently directs student radio station SARC Radio and improvising vocal ensemble HIVE Choir.