A Shared Field of Perception: Voice Over and Focalisation in Extended Reality (XR)
摘要
This article explores how extended reality (XR) reconfigures narrative focalisation by embedding the user within the perceptual frame of a storyworld. Drawing on foundational narrative theory as well as more recent scholarship, it analyses Notes on Blindness: Into Darkness (dirs. Arnaud Colinart, Amaury La Burthe, Peter Middleton, and James Spinney, 2016), Goliath: Playing With Reality (dirs. Barry Gene Murphy and May Abdalla, 2021) and Turbulence: Jamais Vu (dir. Ben Andrews, 2023) to show how voiceover, sensory stimuli, and user interaction co-create a shared field of perception in these XR works. Narration in this context is shown to be variable and relational, blending first and second-person strategies. Focalisation emerges as embodied, contingent, and interactive- no longer confined to text or image alone. This challenges traditional distinctions between narrator, character, and audience, positioning the user as a kind of co-focaliser. The article argues that XR invites an expansion of focalisation theory to accommodate hybrid modes of perception and highlights the medium’s potential for telling embodied and marginalised stories through immersive experience.