In focus: Personal and peripersonal space
Immersive media and live cultural events influence the bubble of space we inhabit and the distances we keep from others. These spatial boundaries are not fixed, they influence how intimate an encounter feels, how much tension is conveyed and how comfortable audiences remain in a crowd. The same principles apply whether someone is meeting an avatar in Extended Reality (XR), sitting in a packed cinema, or dancing at a festival.
Interactions range from one-to-one encounters (face-to-face with an actor or virtual agent) to group co-presence (audience seating, queues, crowd flows) to non-human intrusions (objects, lights or effects that enter the near-body zone). Understanding interpersonal space (the socially negotiated distance between people) and peripersonal space (the near-body region where the brain integrates vision, touch, proprioception and threat cues) offers creators a vocabulary for designing with these considerations in mind.
Case Study: Managing the bubble in onboarding
Laryssa Whittaker77 explored how onboarding and offboarding shape audience comfort. At a Limina Immersive Cinema pilot in Bristol, careful attention was given to personal space: soft furnishings, low lighting and roped-off areas created a sense of safety before headsets went on. Audiences were asked how they preferred staff to signal attention, for example, by a consented to gentle tap on the shoulder. By contrast, a festival screening without seating or clear boundaries left participants sitting on the floor in public view, tethered by cables, and uncomfortably aware of strangers moving around them.