Developing a Framework for Heterotopias as Discursive Playgrounds: A Comparative Analysis of Non-Immersive and Immersive Technologies

TL;DR

This paper proposes a framework for creating heterotopic discursive spaces using immersive and non-immersive digital technologies, enabling multilayered informational environments like virtual museums, evaluated through user studies.

Contribution

It introduces a novel framework for heterotopic digital environments utilizing VR, MR, and PC, with procedural content generation and comparative evaluation.

Findings

Framework supports multilayered digital habitats

User study shows high usability and acceptance

Flexible integration into various practices

Abstract

The discursive space represents the reordering of knowledge gained through accumulation. In the digital age, multimedia has become the language of information, and the space for archival practices is provided by non-immersive technologies, resulting in the disappearance of several layers from discursive activities. Heterotopias are unique, multilayered epistemic contexts that connect other systems through the exchange of information. This paper describes a process to create a framework for Virtual Reality, Mixed Reality, and personal computer environments based on heterotopias to provide absent layers. This study provides virtual museum space as an informational terrain that contains a "world within worlds" and presents place production as a layer of heterotopia and the subject of discourse. Automation for the individual multimedia content is provided via various sorting and grouping algorithms, and procedural content generation algorithms such as Binary Space Partitioning, Cellular Automata, Growth Algorithm, and Procedural Room Generation. Versions of the framework were comparatively evaluated through a user study involving 30 participants, considering factors such as usability, technology acceptance, and presence. The results of the study show that the framework can serve diverse contexts to construct multilayered digital habitats and is flexible for integration into professional and daily life practices.