Individual Experience and Affective Engagement in VR Films
Yuqing Liu
The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong S.A.R. (China); liuyuqing990831@connect.hku.hk
This article examines the role of affectivity in virtual reality (VR) films, focusing on how personal experiences are conveyed through immersive cinematic narratives. Affectivity, encompassing affect, emotions, and feelings, plays a central role in establishing a connection between the viewer and VR films. The article emphasizes how VR films explore themes of personal trauma, memory, and familial relationships, enabling a deeper affective connection for the viewer.
Drawing on theoretical frameworks of intermediality and new materialism, the article explores how VR’s unique affordances — such as spatial immersion and interactive design — enhance the affective depth of these narratives. The immersive nature of VR intensifies affectivity, allowing for a more nuanced exploration of personal trauma and self-reflection. In doing so, the article considers the broader implications of these emotional experiences for understanding personal identity in modern society, as well as their impact on contemporary media practices.
Male Gaze and Sexual Violence : A Comparative Study of I, Phoolan Devi and The Bandit Queen
URWASHI KUMARI
E-Mail: urwashisharma0009@gmail.com
The display of sexual violence can be represented differently in text and film. When medium changes the responses to the same act also change – trivialised and consumable representation entails pornographic and seductive viewership while autobiographical narrative conforms to and creates counter – public of the former viewership. The representation of sexual violence in different narratives not only moulds the readers or audiences; roles in an act of sexual savagery but it also controls the readers' gaze and reactions to a demonstration of violence against women. Representation as tool often becomes significant in playing with the minds of the readers to generate different outcomes and emotions out of them. The present paper attempts to analyse how the episode of sexual violence concerning Phoolan Devi is represented differently in two different mediums i.e.narrative and the cinematic representation and how these distinct portrayals of the same incident generate different impressions on the readers and viewers with the shifting of the two mediums. Phoolan Devi was born in a low caste female called Mallahs, who survived a child marriage, kidnapping and repeated violations of her body, eventually becoming a prominent dacoit. In an attempt to translate her journey on screen, Shekhar Kapoor made a full fledged feature film called The Bandit Queen, trying to depict the repeated sexual violation that Phoolan Devi had to endure along with undergoing struggles due to her low caste. The paper will also examine how there exist different representations of sexual violence that can
influence a reader's mind in various ways by emitting different sentiments. The representations by the author or director bring forth for the a situation through which a reader may generate feelings depending upon their own psyches, however, the process of representation makes use of various techniques to get the viewer and reader involved in the respective narratives. On the one hand the Director of the movie The Bandit Queen represents sexual violence as something outrageous and explicit promoting voyeurism, while on the other the author of the novel I, Phoolan Devi presents the same scenes in different evoking altogether different reactions of empathy from the reader.
Life Finds a Way: A New Materialist-Intermedial Approach to the Jurassic Park Franchise
Mattia Petricola
Università dell'Aquila, Italy; mattia.petricola@univaq.it
This paper focuses on the Jurassic Park/Jurassic World franchise (1990–2001; 2015–ongoing) as a key body of contemporary media products that challenge the conventional anthropocentric understanding of extinction—often framed as a process that primarily affects nonhuman species, leaving humans untouched. In doing so, the franchise foregrounds the dramatic effects of extinction, imagining a world where dinosaurs are resurrected while genetic research radically transforms human-nonhuman relations.
A central premise of this study is that the franchise operates as a site of estrangement, prompting audiences to reconsider extinction through speculative narratives. Dinosaurs are constructed here as liminal beings: living creature belonging to an extinct world, biologically alive yet legally classified as patents, straddling the line between nature and technology, creature and commodity. This strongly resonates with new materialist perspectives, which critique anthropocentric hierarchies and emphasize the agency of nonhuman matter.
A crucial shift distinguishes the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World franchises. The early films (1990–2001) confined dinosaurs to secluded, artificial ecosystems, where human control over nature inevitably collapsed. The Jurassic World era, however, reverses this paradigm: dinosaurs now roam free, integrating into global ecosystems, disrupting human society and forcing new forms of multispecies coexistence. This transition reflects contemporary anxieties over climate crisis, mass extinction, and the unintended consequences of biotechnology.
Furthermore, through its portrayal of necrofauna, the franchise explores themes of biocapital, ecological precarity, and the fragility of human exceptionalism. Additionally, by extending its speculative narratives across multiple media, the franchise fosters participatory ecological estrangement, encouraging audiences to reconsider their place within planetary life.
Ultimately, this paper situates the Jurassic Park/World franchise within new materialist and ecological discourse, arguing that its shift from controlled enclosures to open-ended ecosystems mirrors broader cultural fears about human extinction and the limits of biotechnological intervention. Through its unsettling yet compelling vision of resurrected species, the franchise moves us to confront the agency of the nonhuman and the complexity of human-nonhuman entanglements.
