Another field of vision: Crossing the boundaries between virtual and real at the Louvre-Lens Museum

This study examines the interaction between virtual and material spaces and their impact on the embodied experience of architectural space, using the ‘augmented reality’ guide to the Louvre-Lens Museum as a case study. Drawing on the understanding of perception and action from the theory of embodied cognition - the so-called 4E approach (embodied, extended, embedded, and enacted) - the paper argues that a new layer of virtual/augmented experience not only provides access to more information but also expands bodily interaction between inhabitants and architecture. The virtual space offers another field of vision and visual stimulus to explore and understand the real space. It also serves as a temporal displacement of the real space, providing indeterminate open-endedness and possibilities for the use of the space. These hybrid environments inspire more active environment-initiated behaviours, adding the dimension of bodily reciprocity to the experience of space and information. Consequently, the ways in which we conceive of embodied space are transformed.