Multisensory XR: From ‘Tech for Good’ to Ethical Immersive Experience

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has dominated public and scholarly attention, overshadowing many other areas of technology. Yet there have been some prominent recent developments around Extended Reality (XR) – a blurring of actual and virtual worlds encompassing Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR) and Mixed Reality (MR) – that deserve equal scrutiny. Often supported by AI, XR is transforming the way we interact with digital and physical spaces, while offering immense potential across many sectors. Our project recognises the growing importance of this technology, while proposing to shape its perception, understanding, design and use. It will do so by establishing an interdisciplinary arts and humanities-led research field of Multisensory XR, with a focus on critical enquiry into its social, cultural and ethical values and benefits. Current XR designs are often driven by industry ambitions for total immersion, seeking to captivate users so that they ‘never want to leave’. This approach remains overly focused on commercial needs at the expense of social and personal gains. It also exhibits ocularcentric bias, overlooking the multiple ways people experience the world while restricting access for diverse groups. We’ll address these two issues by working with the concept of ‘ethical multisensory XR’ that goes beyond industry’s ‘Tech for Good’ mantra. We’ll critically investigate what constitutes a ‘good’ immersive XR experience – one that not only succeeds technically and artistically but also delivers ethical and social value. Focusing on the broader potential of XR, we’ll uncover ways to create environments that are more inclusive and responsive to social needs and cultural contexts. Going beyond the ‘goggles and screen’ setup, we’ll identify XR applications that engage touch, sound, smell and taste, while prioritising care, accessibility and inclusivity. By broadening the sensory experience in XR, we’ll showcase interactions that cater to a wider range of users and purposes. The key goal of the project is to ensure that XR not only works but also works for everyone. The project team will be King’s College London-based, consisting of Project Lead Professor Joanna Zylinska (Digital Humanities), 3 Project Co-Leads – Dr Gabriele Salciute Civiliene (Digital Humanities), Dr Stephanie Janes (Culture, Media and Creative Industries), Dr Marie Elena Stefanou (Neuroimaging) – and Neil Jakeman (Specialist, KCL Digital Lab). They are all part of the XR and Attention Research Group hosted by the Digital Futures Institute at King's. Our aims and objectives: Establish a field: We’ll establish a humanities-led field of Multisensory XR to study XR’s values and meanings, identifying how this technology can integrate non-visual senses while challenging the idea of ‘the average user’: implicitly young, male and able-bodied. Outputs will be captured in an open wiki and public report with recommendations. Engage in speculative modelling: Through workshops, interviews and a hackathon, we’ll look into the future of XR experiences via three XR case studies in creative industries, health and education and one proof-of-concept prototype. Build a community: We’ll develop a network of academic, creative and industry collaborators to engage in critical investigation of Multisensory XR while championing the design of ethical, socially-valuable XR. With the network we’ll then co-develop an action plan for future research. This will ensure the community thus formed can be meaningfully mobilised over the forthcoming years, laying the groundwork for further projects and follow-on funding.