Egil Ovesen

Tilknytt UiA Institutt for visuelle og sceniske fag

E-post: egil.ovesen@uia.no
Mobiltelefon: +47 41 50 85 48

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Forskning

Sublime opplevingar frå VR og videospel

Formålet med doktorgradsprosjektet mitt er å komma fram til ny kunnskap m kunstopplevingar frå VR og dataspel – og då spesielt opplevingar av det sublime. Blant det som karakteriserer det sublime er å føla seg liten i møte med noko storslagent, slik som majestetisk natur, ein svær katedral eller ein av Beethovens mektige symfoniar. Dette kan føra til at ein føler seg sterkare knyta til eit fellesskap med dei rundt seg eller til naturen. Utvikling av innovative, kvantitative metodar med bruk av ny teknologi er ein sentral del av doktorgradsprosjektet.

Forskingsdisiplinen i doktorgradsprosjektet er empirisk estetikk. Dette er ei mulitdisiplinær og empirisk basert forskingsgrein som ofte inkluderer teori og metodar frå åtferdsvitskap og eksperimentell psykologi for å vinna ny kunnskap om estetiske opplevingar og dei ulike måtane å oppleva alle former for kunst.

Doktorgradsprosjektet er artikkelbasert og består av tre artiklar og ei kappe som bind det heile saman. Dei to fyrste artiklane er basert på ein studie med 70 forskingsdeltakarar som opplevde ein 25 minutt lang film i VR. Metodane inkluderer psykometri, pre-, post- og oppfylgingstestar og psykofysiologiske målingar. Studien blei gjennomført saman med ei internasjonal gruppe med forskarar innan empirisk estetikk. Resultata blir presentert i ein artikkel med tittelen “The Overview Effect Makes Us Feel More Connected to Nature: Evidence from an Experimental Study Using an Artistically Designed Virtual Reality Video.” Den andre artikkelen er ein tilknytt metodeartikkel med vekt på preprosessering og analyse av tidsseriedata og visualiseringar og verifiseringar av resultata.

Den tredje artikkelen er om sublime opplevingar frå dataspelet Journey. Empirien til denne artikkelen er over 10.000 spelaromtalar av Journey som er lasta ned frå internett. Disse omtalane blei analysert ved hjelp av datateknologi. Gjennom statistikkprogrammet R blei ein lokal språkmodell brukt til å laga ei kodebok og til å kode kvar omtale basert på prinsippa i tematisk analyse. Resultata blei parsa inn ei matrise, og ut frå den kunne eg rekna ut totalkorrelasjonar. Kodene blei så gruppert til faktorar med eksplorativ faktoranalyse, og ut frå denne brukte eg medieringsanalyse til å komme fram til ein visuell modell.

Kappa bind funna frå desse artiklane saman og foreslår ein modell for særtrekka til og mekanismane bak opplevinga av det sublime.

Forskningsgrupper

Ovesen, Egil (2026). Striving for interactivity. I Myrvold, Charlotte Blanche; Skregelid, Lisbet & Tronstad, Ragnhild (Red.), Den kulturelle skolesekken: Forskning møter praksis. Cappelen Damm Akademisk. ISSN 9788202917814. s. 161–186. doi: 10.23865/cdf.286. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag
In this study I identify opportunities and pitfalls that may arise when using digital technology to implement interactivity in arts and culture productions for a school setting. The case used to address the research question is a production created for The Cultural Schoolbag, which is a national Norwegian programme that provides professional arts and culture experiences for all school pupils in Norway. Digital productions, games and interactive mediums, and digital art and culture, are all terms used in reports and recommendations for development of The Cultural Schoolbag. The case production, labelled as a digital and interactive film experience, was initiated because of these recommendations. The research data consist of observations and interviews. Pupils, and to a certain degree teachers, at a lower secondary school were involved in the development of the production through several workshops. Observations of the finished production at another school are complemented by semi-structured interviews with pupils and teachers that experienced the production, as well as semi-structured interviews with administrators, teachers, pupils and the main artist involved in the development process. I analyse this data using reflexive thematic analysis. A discussion of the findings leads to recommendations for future digital, interactive art productions for school settings. These recommendations include basing the contents of fiction rather than aiming to teach factual knowledge, introducing a strong interactivity, and developing distribution formats that encourages involvement and ownership by teachers as well as integration in schools.

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Ovesen, Egil (2026). Striving for participation in The Cultural Schoolbag. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag
Current Norwegian policies within various fields of arts and culture for youths reflect a desire for youth participation. This includes policies for The Cultural Schoolbag, for youth clubs, for public libraries, for the municipalities’ schools of the arts and so on. The youths’ right to participate in decisions affecting themselves is enshrined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and implementing this right may increase enthusiasm, empowerment and development among the involved. However, the term youth participation is ambiguous. In the context of The Cultural Schoolbag, it may entail either participating in development and decision processes or for the pupils to be active in the production themselves. This talk is based on research on the development of a production for the Cultural Schoolbag called Fylgja. The creative development process actively involved pupils and teachers at a lower secondary school. Such involvement can be beneficial for the involved youths, as outlined above, and may lead to a greater relevance of the finished production. The form of involvement can be either consultative or participatory. Involving youths as a test audience will for instance be a consultative rather than a participatory process. Oftentimes, as seen in this study, the degree of involvement is somewhere in between. Following the development of Fylgja, a selection of the involved teachers, pupils, artists and administrators were interviewed. The interviews were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis, and the results provide the basis for a discussion of how participatory and democratic involvement might be approached within the framework of The Cultural Schoolbag. Using principles from participatory action research is suggested as an aid to raise the involvement processes from being consultative to being participatory.
Ovesen, Egil (2026). Inside a plexiglass display case on a pedestal? Videogames as art. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag
Videogames contain most other forms of art, including visual art, architecture, literature, film, theatre and music. However, the establishment of videogames as its own art form is still controversial. Views on the issue range from the film critic Roger Ebert’s (2012a) oft-cited claim that videogames can never be art to videogame creator Michaël Samyn’s (2011) vision of videogame technology allowing for “the greatest works of art our cultures have ever produced”. Research on videogames from the perspectives of art and aesthetics (e.g. Kirkpatrick, 2011; Nguyen, 2020; Tavinor, 2009) is pushing the edge of institutional norms and disciplinary conventions. Such research can expand our understanding both of videogames and of what constitutes art today. I propose two pathways for considering videogames as arts. The first of these is assimilation of videogames into what the philosopher Larry Shiner (2008) has termed the modern system of the arts, including its institutions. Ebert (2012b) has suggested, presumably tongue-in-cheek, that in the style of Andy Warhole, a videogame could be “kept in its shrink-wrapped box, placed […] inside a Plexiglas display case, mounted […] on a pedestal, and labeled […] “Video Game”. Munch Museum in Oslo chose a more constructive alternative when they commissioned a new videogame installation from the artist collective Keiken (2025). However, the Keiken installation also illustrates museums as inappropriate venues for experiencing videogames (Sikko, 2025). This brings me to the second pathway. An alternative to assimilation is what Shiner (2008) describes as the third system of the arts. I will draw on data from my own research on sublime experiences from the videogame Journey (Chen, 2012) to illustrate how videogames can be understood as art in this system, outside the institutional norms, and how the spectators themselves can become active elements in the work of art (Samyn, 2011).
Ovesen, Egil (2026). Sublime Experiences from the Videogame Journey: A Computational Analysis of 10.000 User Reviews. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag
Videogames might very well be the Gesamtkunstwerk of our time. Most of them fuse visual art, storytelling, music, theatre and film into an integral experience, while letting the players experience agency through interactivity. To use the terms of John Dewey, these experiences involve both doing and undergoing. One of the games that is often mentioned as an example of videogames as art is Journey by Jenova Chen. It was released in 2012 and won five British Academy Games Awards the following year, including the one for artistic achievement. The visuals of Journey bear strong similarities to the sublime of the Romantic era. In common with the works of Caspar David Friedrich, one of German Romanticism’s prominent painters, the videogame features forlorn ruins, gravestones, religious symbols, snow-capped mountains and the player as a small figure in a vast landscape. Furthermore, parts of the videogame provide opportunities to experience what Edmund Burke termed “delightful horror” in his treatise on the sublime and the beautiful. The aesthetic experiences the players are left with after the game is evident in user reviews on the community website of videogame distributor Steam. Many of the players even describe physical reactions as tears and goosebumps. Over 10.000 of these public reviews were downloaded to provide empirical data for the current study.
Ovesen, Egil (2025). Dataspel i lys av ulike kunstforståingar. doi: https:/www.kulturtanken.no/kalender/2025/fagdag-om-dataspill/. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag
Å spørja om dataspel er kunst, er samstundes å spørja om kva kunst er. Stipendiat Egil Ovesen forskar på sublime opplevingar frå dataspel og VR. I denne presentasjonen gjer han greie for ulike kunstforståingar og stiller spørsmål med korleis dataspel kan – eller ikkje kan – bli forstått som kunst. Etter presentasjonen held deltakarane fram med diskusjonen i grupper før det blir ei oppsummering i plenum.
Ovesen, Egil; Bjørkavoll, Mariann & Muriaas, Trine Isaksen (2025). Workshop da Vinci: Inviting Pupils to Become Co-creators and Co-researchers. doi: https:/www.inseaconference.com/general-information. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag
Through collaborations with national, regional and local partners, Workshop da Vinci in Ålesund, Norway, provides art workshops for all schools in their municipality. The present study invites lower secondary school pupils to become co-creators and co-researchers in developing interdisciplinary art workshops for their own age group. The activities of Workshop da Vinci let pupils work hands-on with various techniques and artistic expressions. Each workshop is jointly led by two artists representing different forms of the arts. These interdisciplinary workshops are designed to be an integral part of the schools’ tuition in several subjects. The current study takes the inclusiveness and participation of pupils at Workshop da Vinci further. Within a framework of action research and participatory paradigm, we invite a group of pupils and teachers to be co-creators and co-researchers in a study to develop new workshop concepts, to integrate these in the everyday praxis at schools and to investigate what short and long-terms effects participation in the workshops can have. To make sure that the workshops will be accessible for all, we involve the local council for people with disabilities. This creative and collaborative inquiry encompasses, just as art practice does, experiential, presentational, propositional and practical knowing. The experiential knowing is the fundamental experience of our presence in the world and mutual encounters with things and other beings. This experiential knowing can be expressed and made sense of as presentational knowledge – taking the shape of various art forms – and as propositional knowledge formulated as statements about the world. Practical knowing is an embodied fulfilment of the other kinds of knowing. Our educational system has a tradition of emphasising propositional knowledge, while the present study explores how art-based workshops can provide learning experiences that includes a fuller set of the human forms of knowing.
Ovesen, Egil (2025). The Videogame Journey: Sublime Experiences and Social Connectedness. doi: https:/www.inseaconference.com/general-information. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag
When it comes to videogames as art, the prizewinning game Journey (2012) is often among the first mentioned. The game features allegories, metaphors, and symbols that make it well-suited for use within several school subjects, and there are teaching materials available for its use within the Norwegian educational system. The present study uses computational methods to analyse over 8,000 public reviews written by gamers after playing Journey. The visuals of Journey borrow heavily from prototypical elements of the sublime in European Romanticism, including images of snowcapped mountains, forlorn ruins and the player as a small figure in an overwhelmingly large landscape. The notion of the sublime is strongly linked to the experience of awe. Many reviews of Journey describe a strong connection to other players met in the game – despite the absence of verbal communication. Previous research indicates that experiences of awe may lead to feelings of stronger connectedness to others and the surrounding environment and may even enhance prosocial behaviour and well-being. The present study uses a computational method called text mining to investigate how and to what extent players’ reported awe and connectedness are linked with the formal qualities of the videogame, and particularly its use of elements prototypical of the sublime. Text mining extracts insights from large volumes of unstructured text. Recent technological developments have made it possible to integrate Generative Large Language Models with text mining using the open-source R programming environment. The present study aims to reveal some of the mechanisms behind awe and enhanced feelings of connectedness by producing a graphical network analysis that maps the emotions, reactions and reflections described by the gamers.
Ovesen, Egil; Chamberlain, Rebecca; Fingerhut, Joerg; Nezami, Annahita & Pelowski, Matthew (2024). Refining raw data of psychophysiological measures and continuous-self ratings into useful and reliable time series plots. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag
The threshold of using psychophysiological measures in art and media research has decreased in line with lower procurement cost and size of equipment. Using psychophysiological methods may provide insights into emotional and cognitive processes that participants are not able to or perhaps not even willing to share (Potter & Bolls, 2012, p. 44). Consequently, these methods may provide insights into the processes that happen in the bodies and brains between the stimuli and the effects that participants report. However, affordable and lightweight equipment is not sufficient without statistical methods to process and interpret the raw data. As part of a study on the experience of a VR video, we explored statistical methods to process raw data to retrieve useful and reliable time series plots. We invited 70 participants to our lab to experience a 25-minute-long video intending to recreate the overview effect with the use of artistic images and music based on binaural beat and Schumann resonances. The overview effect is the experience the astronauts have describe when viewing the world from outer space, including the effects that followed afterwards (White, 1987). This has been described as the quintessential experience of awe, and it should thus provide the basis for a powerful stimulus. Our psychophysiological measures consisted of electrodermal activity, heart frequency and respiration. These measures can give insights into emotional arousal, as well as the balance and changes between emotional arousal and cognitive activity. We complemented these measures by asking the participants to do continuous self-ratings using joystick and to fill in questionnaires prior to and after experiencing the VR video. The statistical processes to achieve time series plots of psychophysiological measures triangulated with continuous self-ratings and behavioural data form the core of our poster.
Ovesen, Egil; Chamberlain, Rebecca; Fingerhut, Joerg; Nezami, Annahita & Pelowski, Matthew (2024). Experiencing the Overview Effect Makes Us Feel More Connected to Nature: Evidence from an Experimental Study Combining Virtual Reality with Artistic Images and Music. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag
The overview effect is the effect described by astronauts when viewing the Earth from outer space. The first theories of the overview effect, and the term itself, were introduced by Frank White in his book The Overview Effect: Space Exploration and Human Evolution (1987). His text is based on interviews of 30 astronauts. Our study aims to investigate whether the overview effect can be recreated on Earth using virtual reality. We conducted an experiment with 70 participants watching a Virtual Reality video with artistic images and music intending to recreate the overview effect. Would watching this 25-minute-long video give some of the same effect as the astronauts described? Would it give the same changes in connectedness to nature, to other people and to themselves? What would be the mechanisms behind these changes in connectedness? And what individual differences would we find in the reported experience and change in connectedness? To investigate these questions quantitatively, we combined pre-test, post-test and one-week follow-up questionnaires with psychophysiological measures and continuous self-ratings of the subjective experience of intensity. Previous studies link the overview effect to awe, and it has even been described as the quintessential awe. Our study will consequently not only contribute to the current understanding of the overview effect, but also add to the understanding of the emotion, feeling or experience of awe.
Ovesen, Egil (2024). Estetisk ærefrykt i dataspill. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag
Tårer, frysninger og gåsehud. Vi kjenner alle opplevelsen fra kunst, musikk eller å se storslått natur. Det vi opplever fysisk på kroppen kalles en estetisk ærefrykt. Egil Ovesen fra Institutt for visuelle og sceniske fag undersøker om vi også kan få slike opplevelser gjennom dataspill. Ved å se nærmere på mange tusen brukeropplevelser fra dataspillet Journey finner han at skildringer av sterke personlige kunstopplevelser.
Ovesen, Egil & Zunic, Elmedin (2024). “Diversity” og kunstforståelse utfra et akademisk-kunstnerisk perspektiv. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag
Spørsmål om hvem som har adgang til kunsten, hvem er den for, hvordan skal vi forstå kunst og elitisme som konsept? Hvem er kunstneren? Utestenger vi noen fra kunsten? Hva er egentlig “kunst”, dersom man går utenfor vårt kunstmiljø eller “boks”? Finnes det noen som ikke har tilgang til kunst? Er det slik at våre begreper ekskluderer noen fra kunstopplevelsen?
Ovesen, Egil; Chamberlain, Rebecca; Fingerhut, Joerg; Nezami, Annahita & Pelowski, Matthew (2024). Noisy time series data of video and music perception in virtual reality (VR): Preprocessing of data, time series plots and analyses. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag
Video and music perception happens over time. Recording time series data of various measures may provide in insights into the stages of the perception of the stimuli, but our experience is that these data are noisy with huge and unexplained individual differences. Psychophysiological data are particularly noisy, or as Potter and Bolls (2012) put it: “monstrosities”. However, when the challenges of preprocessing the psychophysiological data are overcome, they can provide insights into emotional and mental processes that the participants may not be able or willing to share (Potter & Bolls, 2012). The aim of this talk is to give examples of how continuous data, including psychophysiological data, can be preprocessed, illustrated and analysed to provide insights into the various stages of video and music perception. We invited 70 participants to our lab where they watched a 25 minute-longvideo in virtual reality (VR). The video is based on the overview effect, which is the effect that astronauts have described when watching the Earth from outer space. Some of the reported aspects of the overview effects are a sense of awe, interconnectedness of all life and responsibility for the environment (White, 2014). We hypothesised to see some of the same effects in our VR experiment. The music included binaural beats to enhance the feeling of connectedness (Barratt et al., 2022). The participants were given online questionnaires to fill in three days before the experiment, immediately after and one or more week after. We recorded psychophysiological measures of electrodermal activity, pulse and respiration when the participants experienced the VR video, and the participants continuously rated their subjective experience of intensity using a joystick. The questionnaire data from our experiment reveals that the participants experienced a stronger connectedness to nature and a better self-relation immediately after the experiencing the VR video as compared to the prequestionnaires. The analyses we have conducted so far have not revealed any link between these changes and continuous data. However, the continuous data provide insights into the participants perception of the video and music. The preprocessing, illustration and analyses of these data is the theme of this talk. One of the insights is that the experience of intensity can be predicted by the psychophysiological data, but with a significant lag. This may indicate that measurable physical emotions occur before the conscious experience of them. This corresponds to theories of emotions and feelings proposed by Antonio Damasio (2003). The time series plots identify the periods of the video the participants had measurable emotional arousal and what periods they reported as intense. This talk will have an extra emphasis on the perception of music. To do so, we will prepare timeline plots of the brightness, roughness and amplitude of the music (Peck, 2020) to explore whether these data can predict the physical reactions and the continuous self-ratings and if so, what the time lag between these measures are.
Ovesen, Egil (2024). An ongoing analysis of 6.000 user reviews of the videogame Journey. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag
An ongoing analysis of 6.000 user reviews of the videogame Journey. Some of these user reviews describe powerful emotional art experiences, even with physical reactions as tears, shivers and goosebumps. The analysis is done with text mining, which makes it possible to extract useful insights from large amounts of text.
Ovesen, Egil (2023). New Media, Old Dilemmas: A Study at the Intersection of Interactivity, Arts and Education. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag
Film makers collaborate with historians, teachers and pupils to develop an interactive art production for lower secondary schools in Norway. An explorative study of the production process and the pupils’ experience reveal some of the new and old dilemmas that haunt the process and the result. It’s Friday at a lower secondary school in Norway. Twenty-odd pupils have just eaten their packed lunch and are now walking down the stairs of the large school auditorium. At the wide stage there are writing tables and school chairs prepared for them. Electric roller blinds stop daylight from entering the room. A friendly person wearing a black T-shirt, black hoodie and charcoal grey jeans guide the pupils to their seats. A black hat covers the top part of his unruly hair. “Hi and welcome to Eyaer, a digital and interactive film experience.” The description is from an ongoing study of an interactive art production for lower secondary schools in Norway. Film makers develop the producti on in collaboration with historians, school pupils and teachers. The production process does not go as planned, and the observations and interviews from this explorative study highlight some of the dilemmas and difficulties they meet. Some of them are new and media specific, while older dilemmas lurk in the production process and become evident in the pupils’ experience of the result. Qualitative analysis and grounded theory are used to code and analyse the findings, and interactivity or illusion of interactivity becomes an important axis of discussion.
Ovesen, Egil (2022). Virtual Reality Overview Effect (VROE). Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag
The Overview Effect is the intense experience that astronauts describe of viewing Earth from outer space (Yaden 2016, Chirico et al 2018). The effect is strongly linked to awe (Gallagher et al 2014, Yaden et al 2016), and for those who experience it, the Overview Effect can give transformative experiences leading to a feeling of being connected to the world, to other people to nature and to one-self (Stepenova et al 2019). The Virtual Reality Overview Effect (VROE) research project is a collaboration between researchers at University of Vienna, University of Berlin, Goldsmiths, University of Agder and the VR Overview Effect organization. The VROE research project will use an artistic interpretation of the overview effect as the basis of experiments. The aim is for these experiments to lead a better understanding of the overview effect and of awe. Previous experiments have shown that the overview effect can successfully be evoked using VR technology, and that recreation of the overview effect can be used in an educational setting (LimptBroers et al 2020). If experiencing the overview effect gives a feeling of connectedness to other people and to nature, will these experiences also have the potential to resolve conflicts (Shapiro et al 2019) and to create an awareness of our fragile environment? Questions for discussion • What are the potential links between the transformative potential of the overview effect and the concept of subjectivation? • Can the notion of subjectivation be operationalized to disuss these transformative experiences? The presentation will consist of a video clip and a presentation of the current knowledge gathered in the project so far.
Ovesen, Egil (2021). La ikkje kriseløysingar forma det nye digitale innhaldet i Den kulturelle skulesekken. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
Ovesen, Egil; Ulvund, Marit & Stenslie, Ståle (2021). Kunstproduksjon gjennom digitale medium. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag
FORMÅLET MED UTVIKLINGSVERKSTADEN 1. Samarbeid mellom skule, Den kulturelle skulesekken, kunstnarar, teknologar, forskarar og andre for å komma fram til kva ein kunstproduksjon gjennom digitale medium kan vera. 2. Samhandling mellom skule, kunstnarar, teknologar, forskarar og Den kulturelle skulesekken for å foreslå idear til innhald og digital form 3. Avklara kva samarbeidspartnarar og interessentar, som kulturtanken, fylkeskommunen, Romsdalsmuseet, SINTEF og så bortetter, kan bidra med i utviklingsarbeidet. OM #UNGKUNST, DKS OG SKOLE-PROSJEKTET Utviklingsverkstaden og den digitale produksjonen som skal utviklast er ein del av forskings- og utviklingsprosjektet #ungkunst. #ungkunst vil bidra til innovasjon ved å prøva ut nye samarbeidsformer mellom DKS og utdanningssektoren. Merksemda er på å utforska og vidareutvikla modellar for medverknad som involverer kunstnarar, lærarar, skuleleiing og skuleeigarar over tid. Eit viktig premiss for prosjektet er at modellane skal vera gjennomførbare i DKS. Kunstproduksjon gjennom digitale medium og opplevinga til elevane er ein av tre satsingar i #ungkunst. Produksjonen vil vere grunnlag for eit doktorgradsprosjekt med problemstillinga Korleis kan barn og unge få kunstopplevingar gjennom digitale medium.

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Publisert 16. apr. 2024 11:25 - Sist endra 28. mars 2026 22:08