Embodied Aesthetics in Immersive VR Animation: An Operational Design Framework

Abstract

Immersive virtual reality (VR) is commonly evaluated through presence, fidelity, usability, and task performance. These approaches do not fully explain how technical transformation, abstract audiovisual form, and bodily activity jointly become materials of aesthetic design. This short article proposes the Embodied Aesthetic Framework (EAF) for designing and analysing immersive VR animation. Developed through an integrative synthesis of phenomenology, enactivism, postphenomenology, animation aesthetics, presence research, and embodied interaction design, the EAF distinguishes three interdependent constructs: Technological Mediation, Aesthetic Abstraction, and Embodied Cognition. Reflective Awareness is treated as a contingent outcome rather than an automatic effect. The article defines observable features for each construct, formulates four relational propositions, and presents a compact application protocol. The framework shifts attention from maximising immersion to composing a legible relation among system transformation, audiovisual organisation, and bodily sense-making. It is intended as a mid-range explanatory and generative framework, not a psychometric scale or a claim of universal effects. Keywords: immersive virtual reality; animation; embodied aesthetics; technological mediation; abstraction; embodied cognition