A short rant about the i word

[gentle lemur]

You know the one I mean, immersive

It's a silly word. We all know that immerse means to push something or someone underwater (or go there yourself). We also know from our first swimming lessons that immersion is not an altogether pleasant experience. Some people learn to love it. Baptists proclaim its importance. But I think most right-thinking people will sympathise with Mr Anstruther in P G Wodehouse's short story who suddenly becomes 'the wettest man in Worcestershire' and immediately grabs his stick and chases Bertie Wooster's bucket-wielding cousin Thos.
The opposite of immerse is emerse, meaning pushed out of water. This is a binary system, there are only two states: the force of gravity ensures that seven-eighths of a floating iceberg is immerse and one-eighth emerse, with nothing in between. So you can't qualify these words. Remember that your English teacher told you that something is either unique or it isn't, constructions such as 'rather unique' or 'very unique' are impossible. Immerse is the same.
I have a confession to make. In a previous post I broke this rule by coining the comparative term 'immersiver'. I apologised for this solecism immediately. Of course I was wrong, an experience can be immersive or not immersive (or emersive if you prefer) and nothing else.
Except that we do need a comparative term. We need to be able to describe the degree of our involvement in a zoo exhibit, so we need a different expression. For example in my last post about Islands at Chester zoo, I remarked that the arrival of the chattering lories and rhinoceros hornbills had improved the Islands experience because their calls added something that hadn't been there before. I trust that when the gibbons arrive they will add something further - but how can I describe it in simple terms?
Please can we find a better term than the i word.

Alan

 

[reduakari]

You know the one I mean, immersive

It's a silly word. We all know that immerse means to push something or someone underwater (or go there yourself). We also know from our first swimming lessons that immersion is not an altogether pleasant experience. Some people learn to love it. Baptists proclaim its importance. But I think most right-thinking people will sympathise with Mr Anstruther in P G Wodehouse's short story who suddenly becomes 'the wettest man in Worcestershire' and immediately grabs his stick and chases Bertie Wooster's bucket-wielding cousin Thos.
The opposite of immerse is emerse, meaning pushed out of water. This is a binary system, there are only two states: the force of gravity ensures that seven-eighths of a floating iceberg is immerse and one-eighth emerse, with nothing in between. So you can't qualify these words. Remember that your English teacher told you that something is either unique or it isn't, constructions such as 'rather unique' or 'very unique' are impossible. Immerse is the same.
I have a confession to make. In a previous post I broke this rule by coining the comparative term 'immersiver'. I apologised for this solecism immediately. Of course I was wrong, an experience can be immersive or not immersive (or emersive if you prefer) and nothing else.
Except that we do need a comparative term. We need to be able to describe the degree of our involvement in a zoo exhibit, so we need a different expression. For example in my last post about Islands at Chester zoo, I remarked that the arrival of the chattering lories and rhinoceros hornbills had improved the Islands experience because their calls added something that hadn't been there before. I trust that when the gibbons arrive they will add something further - but how can I describe it in simple terms?
Please can we find a better term than the i word.

Alan

"Immersive" as lazily applied to describe zoo exhibits is a phrase that has lost most of its original meaning, as well as its original modifier: "landscape."

Jones and Jones Architects and Landscape Architects, working with the oft-reviled (on this site at least) David Hancocks in Seattle in the 1970s coined the phrase "landscape immersion" to describe a new variant of naturalistic presentation of animals in zoos. Its primary differentiator from Hagenbeckian design or "living dioramas" was the notion of replicating the displayed animals' natural environment, not just within the animals' enclosure but also extending it into and enveloping the visitor, together with efforts to disguise or minimize the methods of containment and separation. The thought was this would better convey the inextricable connections between animals and their habitats, a major move away from the traditional representation of zoo animals as exotic objects, removed from their natural evolutionary context. It was (and remains) a powerful and influential conceptual breakthrough in zoo design.

In practice, very few zoo exhibits truly achieve the intended results of the concept, and today the shorthand term "immersion" is used to describe anything that involves gunite rocks or thatch roof huts. I can count on one hand the number of zoos that have employed the technique with felicity and real impact.

 

[Hix]

Please can we find a better term than the i word.

Experiential?



Hix

 

[Zooplantman]

"Immersive" as lazily applied to describe zoo exhibits is a phrase that has lost most of its original meaning, as well as its original modifier: "landscape."

Jones and Jones Architects and Landscape Architects, working with the oft-reviled (on this site at least) David Hancocks in Seattle in the 1970s coined the phrase "landscape immersion" to describe a new variant of naturalistic presentation of animals in zoos. Its primary differentiator from Hagenbeckian design or "living dioramas" was the notion of replicating the displayed animals' natural environment, not just within the animals' enclosure but also extending it into and enveloping the visitor, together with efforts to disguise or minimize the methods of containment and separation. The thought was this would better convey the inextricable connections between animals and their habitats, a major move away from the traditional representation of zoo animals as exotic objects, removed from their natural evolutionary context. It was (and remains) a powerful and influential conceptual breakthrough in zoo design.

In practice, very few zoo exhibits truly achieve the intended results of the concept, and today the shorthand term "immersion" is used to describe anything that involves gunite rocks or thatch roof huts. I can count on one hand the number of zoos that have employed the technique with felicity and real impact.

I heartily agree

 

[Ohiozoos]

"Immersive" as lazily applied to describe zoo exhibits is a phrase that has lost most of its original meaning, as well as its original modifier: "landscape."

Jones and Jones Architects and Landscape Architects, working with the oft-reviled (on this site at least) David Hancocks in Seattle in the 1970s coined the phrase "landscape immersion" to describe a new variant of naturalistic presentation of animals in zoos. Its primary differentiator from Hagenbeckian design or "living dioramas" was the notion of replicating the displayed animals' natural environment, not just within the animals' enclosure but also extending it into and enveloping the visitor, together with efforts to disguise or minimize the methods of containment and separation. The thought was this would better convey the inextricable connections between animals and their habitats, a major move away from the traditional representation of zoo animals as exotic objects, removed from their natural evolutionary context. It was (and remains) a powerful and influential conceptual breakthrough in zoo design.

In practice, very few zoo exhibits truly achieve the intended results of the concept, and today the shorthand term "immersion" is used to describe anything that involves gunite rocks or thatch roof huts. I can count on one hand the number of zoos that have employed the technique with felicity and real impact.

Just for my own curiosity, could you mention which zoos/exhibits you feel really capture the feeling of "immersion"?

 

[Arizona Docent]

...In practice, very few zoo exhibits truly achieve the intended results of the concept, and today the shorthand term "immersion" is used to describe anything that involves gunite rocks or thatch roof huts. I can count on one hand the number of zoos that have employed the technique with felicity and real impact.

Yes - agree one hundred percent!

 

[Arizona Docent]

Just for my own curiosity, could you mention which zoos/exhibits you feel really capture the feeling of "immersion"?

Question not directed at me, but here are some off top of my head.
Desert Loop Trail at Arizona Sonora Desert Museum
pretty much all of Northwest Trek
Desert Trail at Phoenix Zoo

 

[kiang]

Question not directed at me, but here are some off top of my head.
Desert Loop Trail at Arizona Sonora Desert Museum
pretty much all of Northwest Trek
Desert Trail at Phoenix Zoo

Can these be classed as "immersive", these exhibits have not been lifted, designed and placed, they are of their neighbourhood, fine exhibits as they are, they just happen to be there?

 

[tetrapod]

Can these be classed as "immersive", these exhibits have not been lifted, designed and placed, they are of their neighbourhood, fine exhibits as they are, they just happen to be there?

Agree. How can exhibits which are part of the natural environment be immersive, when you are already immersed! There are plenty of zoos around the world which focus specifically on native fauna of that area (Healesville + Alice Springs Desert Park in Australia, Belize Zoo, Entebbe in Uganda) or fauna of a similar habitat (Highland in Scotland and Nordens Ark in Sweden) where no major modification to exhibits is required.

In order for the original concept of landscape immersion to be achieved then it has to be 'manufactured' - visitors are supposed to feel like they have been transported to that particular environment/country. As many have already posted most zoos make a token gesture towards it, if any.

 

[gentle lemur]

The quest for a truly im*****ve experience can be frustrating. The nearest I have come to one recently was at the entrance to Islands at Chester on its opening day in July this year. Of course it is carefully designed, you walk along a path which gently curves through a wooded area then you turn a corner and supposedly arrive in the Philippines. On that morning, it more or less worked for me. There were a lot of zoo members who had waited in the queue with a growing sense of anticipation. I was with a couple of friends from ZooChat and as we reached the entrance, the sun was blazing down from a perfectly blue sky - it just didn't feel like northern England.



But it didn't really feel like a zoo either, as we couldn't see or hear any animals until we had walked along the path and over the bridge to reach the warty pig enclosure. Islands is still developing and there is a lot to like about it - but I don't think I'll ever quite repeat that initial experience.

My quest for a replacement adjective continues. Hix's suggestion of 'experiential' is a constructive idea, but it's rather a clumsy word and it is a bit too close to 'experimental' for my liking. As my background is in Chemistry, I wondered about the idea of valency - making bonds between the visitor and the exhibit. This has the advantage of being easy to use quantitatively: a monovalent exhibit only lets a visitor make a single bond by having a single experience such as looking at one animal through a window, while an exhibit where you can see two species of bird and hear one of them singing would be trivalent and so on. Perhaps that gets too clumsy.
Currently I am favouring the idea that our experience of an exhibit is built up of several factors - what we see, hear, learn and so on: so the best exhibits will be 'multifactorial' (or perhaps 'polyfactorial'). Or does this bring back unhappy memories of Maths classes?

Alan

 

[Ituri]

Can these be classed as "immersive", these exhibits have not been lifted, designed and placed, they are of their neighbourhood, fine exhibits as they are, they just happen to be there?

The Desert Loop trail at Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum is absolutely a fine example of landscape immersion in its truest form. Every effort is made to eliminate visible barriers and all necessary man-made elements are hidden and de-emphasized to disappear into the landscape. They could have simply thrown up a chain link fence around some desert, but that is not what they did at all. They created a highly designed, immersive experience that takes you into the landscape in a way that is unlike a traditional zoo encounter.

Another note, something need not be exotic to employ the principles of landscape immersion. In fact, being able to show the actual habitat rather than a simulated one makes it all the more immersive.

 

[Ituri]

The quest for a truly im*****ve experience can be frustrating. The nearest I have come to one recently was at the entrance to Islands at Chester on its opening day in July this year. Of course it is carefully designed, you walk along a path which gently curves through a wooded area then you turn a corner and supposedly arrive in the Philippines. On that morning, it more or less worked for me. There were a lot of zoo members who had waited in the queue with a growing sense of anticipation. I was with a couple of friends from ZooChat and as we reached the entrance, the sun was blazing down from a perfectly blue sky - it just didn't feel like northern England.



But it didn't really feel like a zoo either, as we couldn't see or hear any animals until we had walked along the path and over the bridge to reach the warty pig enclosure. Islands is still developing and there is a lot to like about it - but I don't think I'll ever quite repeat that initial experience.

My quest for a replacement adjective continues. Hix's suggestion of 'experiential' is a constructive idea, but it's rather a clumsy word and it is a bit too close to 'experimental' for my liking. As my background is in Chemistry, I wondered about the idea of valency - making bonds between the visitor and the exhibit. This has the advantage of being easy to use quantitatively: a monovalent exhibit only lets a visitor make a single bond by having a single experience such as looking at one animal through a window, while an exhibit where you can see two species of bird and hear one of them singing would be trivalent and so on. Perhaps that gets too clumsy.
Currently I am favouring the idea that our experience of an exhibit is built up of several factors - what we see, hear, learn and so on: so the best exhibits will be 'multifactorial' (or perhaps 'polyfactorial'). Or does this bring back unhappy memories of Maths classes?

Alan

A truly immersive, themed experience is about more than just what we see, but what we hear, smell, feel and even taste. Modern exhibits often employ principles of landscape immersion in concert with strategies to increase the chance of a bond or connection forming between guest and animal as well as between guest and staff.

 

[snowleopard]

I'd be intrigued to read any responses to the following statements...taken from IZES Chairman Tim Brown's 4-page comprehensive review of Chester Zoo's "Islands" project in the spring edition of Zoo Grapevine:

"I had the overwhelming feeling whilst going rounds 'Islands' that I had stumbled not into Indonesia but into an American zoo. In the USA I have seen similar zoogeographic displays on numerous occasions: but that is not at all a deleterious comment about 'Islands'. If immersion is your thing, then the USA is way ahead of Europe; and saying that 'Islands' could easily be part of a major USA zoo is intended as a compliment."

Incidentally, Tim is not even a big fan of immersion-style exhibits and he much prefers animal houses of one type or another.

 

[Hix]

Currently I am favouring the idea that our experience of an exhibit is built up of several factors - what we see, hear, learn and so on: so the best exhibits will be 'multifactorial' (or perhaps 'polyfactorial'). Or does this bring back unhappy memories of Maths classes?

Polysensorial?



Hix

 

[gentle lemur]

Polysensorial?



Hix

Possibly, although 'sensorial' might be confusingly close to 'censorious' when spoken aloud.

Alan

 

[Batto]

NG interview with David Hancocks taking a shot at the practical implementation of "landscape immersion design" (and rightfully so, if I might add)
A Critical Look at the Future of Zoos–An Interview with David Hancocks | National Geographic (blogs)

 

[FunkyGibbon]

The quest for a truly im*****ve experience can be frustrating. The nearest I have come to one recently was at the entrance to Islands at Chester on its opening day in July this year. Of course it is carefully designed, you walk along a path which gently curves through a wooded area then you turn a corner and supposedly arrive in the Philippines. On that morning, it more or less worked for me. There were a lot of zoo members who had waited in the queue with a growing sense of anticipation. I was with a couple of friends from ZooChat and as we reached the entrance, the sun was blazing down from a perfectly blue sky - it just didn't feel like northern England.

Alan

I've been giving this some thought recently, especially because I had a similar experience at Chester last year.

I'd like to suggest the word 'transportive', playing off that feeling of suddenly being somewhere different. I think a problem with immersive exhibits is that when they invariably slip up and jerk you back to reality you can sometimes feel quite cheated, whereas a transportive one has at that point already achieved its more temporary goal and you can then focus on enjoying other aspects.