The power of images in virtual environments

By Nicoleta Bazgan

In his ERC-funded project AN-ICON An-Iconology: History, Theory, and Practices of Environmental Images, Andrea Pinotti shows that these novel image-technologies require a different understanding. The name AN-ICON refers to a new role of images that engulf the viewer through multisensory experiences, including extended-reality technologies (XR), such as Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), Mixed Reality (MR), and, more recently, Artificial Intelligence (AI). Pinotti and his team investigated the history of these images, built a theory to understand them, and applied this knowledge to the development of new XR technologies. 

A long human fascination with immersive worlds

When asked about the beginning of the project, Pinotti mentions his research interests, combining philosophy, aesthetics and visuals arts, to examine the evolution from static to immersive images. 

He invokes a Chinese legend about the famous Tang dynasty painter Wu Tao-tzu (eighth century). Commissioned by the emperor to paint a beautiful landscape on the wall of the imperial palace, the artist entered the painting that he had just finished and forever disappeared. Pinotti credits this story with instilling in him a desire to investigate the drive ‘to enter the image’, focusing on total absorption of the viewer that foreshadows recent XR technologies and what he labels as ‘environmental images’. 

This story also shows that the desire to enter an image, present across media and cultures, has a long genealogy, becoming almost an anthropological universal, states Pinotti. Constantly portrayed as novel technologies by the media, virtual worlds are, in fact, as old as imagination. From Plato’s allegory of the cave to medieval cathedrals and nineteenth-century panoramas, and from twentieth-century cultural and film theorists such as Walter Benjamin and Siegfried Kracauer to popular films such as Mary Poppins and George Clooney’s Nespresso advertisements, virtual environments display an impressive lineage. The scholarly journal launched by the project, AN-ICON. Studies in Environmental Images, traces this ‘media archaeology of environmental images’.

A new concept for an old/new type of image

Crossing the threshold separating the image from reality, the viewer plunges into an alternative world, which has yet to be fully conceptualised. Pinotti and his team’s research of immersive virtual environments identified their key characteristics. These quasi-real worlds are artificial and heavily mediated, yet they aim to feel immediate. They are unframed, undermining the threshold between reality, and create the feeling of being in another space. Finally, the moving images produce a constant sense of being present in the peripersonal space of the user. 

To capture these shifts in perception and cognition, Pinotti introduced the term an-icon to illustrate how these environments differ from traditional images, which are mostly separate, observable, and time-situated. The virtual environments do not allow the viewer to perceive the images as such but as a new reality, whose key characteristics Pinotti identifies as immediate, unframed and present. This experience alters our perception, cognition, and emotions – the core of our human experience of the world. 

Why the humanities matter for technology

New image technologies are often framed either as risks in a technophobic vision or as a panacea by techno-enthusiasts. AN-ICON eschews this divide by focusing on a critical understanding of these extended-reality environments.  To achieve this, Pinotti goes back to his philosophical roots and explains that he understands critique, in the way which Immanuel Kant envisaged it, as a critical assessment of the limits and potentialities of XR technologies, leading to awareness of their discursive and ideological frameworks. 

The humanities then become key to comprehend how these technologies disrupt and change our making sense of the world. Usually, digital technologies developers focus on the novelty of devices, explains Pinotti, while ignoring their extended history, the ideology behind their production, and their impact on our lives. 

He elaborates on the critical role of the humanities developed by AN-ICON, saying that ’it allows the humanities to highlight unexpected historical connections, expose ideological biases, and to help contextualise technology not as an external addition but as an organic aspect of the human constitution. These devices transform our lifestyle, bodies, and daily practices. In a sense, the idea that technologies modify the body and determine new chapters in the history of human experience was always at the foundation of AN-ICON.’ 

A more sophisticated analysis of the technologies becomes key to understanding their function in our contemporary culture and to designing effective virtual experiences.

From research to practice: designing virtual worlds

A major part of AN-ICON brought philosophers, art historians, computer scientists, cultural anthropologists, historians of science and technology, legal scholars and screen studies experts together to explore experimental uses of XR. Their work spans fields such as education, museum practice, architecture, justice and psychology. 

The team also examined new immersive applications of AI. For example, chatbots have proven to be useful in Holocaust museums, conveying the perspective of survivors through generative conversation that closely mirrors real-life interaction. Immersive journalism has been another field in which VR (described as ’the ultimate empathy machine’) is applied, allowing audiences to share lived experiences and understand humanitarian crises better than watching a TV screen. The teams has critically addressed this claim, debunking its ideological premises. 

This interdisciplinary work laid the foundation for a new, highly innovative ERC Proof of Concept project.

TIMELAPSE: rethinking time in chemotherapy

The ERC Proof of Concept project TIMELAPSE. A VR application for speeding up time passage during chemotherapy applies AN-ICON’s theoretical insights to a very different field: oncology.

Led by Pinotti and Federica Cavaletti, the project investigates how VR can alter the subjective perception of time. The goal is a VR application that helps chemotherapy patients experience treatment sessions as passing more quickly.

The VR prototype is being developed with the industrial partner Khora, in collaboration with University of Milan-Bicocca and the oncology unit at Fondazione IRCCS San Gerardo dei Tintori, led by Marina Cazzaniga.

At this intersection between theoretical, industrial and clinical research, the project distinguishes itself by a strong commitment to a patient-oriented approach. Through the clinical partnership, patients are involved both as consultants in the design phase and as participants in clinical trials, providing valuable insight into the chemotherapy experience. 

Cavaletti explains: ‘Very often, VR applications are developed by experts back in their labs and delivered to the end users without ever engaging them We really wanted to hear from patients and to consider their socio-demographic background, as these are variables that can affect how one approaches chemotherapy.’ 

A first prototype has been tested in a pilot clinical trial. Patient feedback is now guiding improvements in tolerability and effectiveness, with the aim of commercialising the app.

Shaping future technologies

Together, AN-ICON and TIMELAPSE show how humanities-led research can transform our understanding of new technologies and inspire practical solutions with direct societal impact. By combining philosophy, cultural analysis, clinical expertise and technological development, these ERC projects demonstrate how interdisciplinary research can lead to more inclusive, responsible and human-centred innovation in our increasingly virtual world.

Biography

Andrea Pinotti is professor in image theory and head of the department of Philosophy Piero Martinetti at the University of Milan, where he coordinates the research center EXT (‘Extended Realities’). His studies focus on image theories and visual studies, virtual and augmented reality, memorialisation and monumentality. Fellow of various international institutions, in 2018 he has been awarded the Wissenschaftspreis der Aby-Warburg-Stiftung. Among his recent publications, the volumes At the Threshold of the Image. From Narcissus to Virtual Reality (Zone Books 2025) and Tele-Monuments. Memorial Practices in Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and Artificial Intelligence (Deutscher Kunstverlag - de Gruyter 2025).