ABSTRACT
Immersive situations and settings are not limited to aesthetic forms like theatre, performance art, film, videos, computer games and virtual-reality applications. Immersion derives from the Latin verb immergere, meaning originally the plunging or submersion of a body or objects into a liquid, hence the figurative sense of becoming enveloped or engrossed in a certain situation. In summer 2016, reports began to accumulate about young people behaving peculiarly. Smartphones in hand, they trekked through train stations and pedestrian zones, gathered in markets and town squares, blocked bridges and sidewalks, and stormed businesses, sometimes churches, and other buildings both public and private. The arts often anticipate technical, media and social developments, testing them out in experimental settings, but from a cultural historical perspective, immersive spaces and situations were first anticipated in sacred spaces, and then, beginning in the nineteenth century, primarily in spaces of consumerism.
