The corporeal body in virtual reality

This paper considers the experience of embodiment in current and (possible) Suture virtual reality applications. A phenomenological perspective is adop ted to explore user embodiment in those virtual reality applications that b oth do and do not include a visual body (re)presentation (virtual body). Em bodiment is viewed from the perspective of sensorial immersion, where issue s of gender, race, and culture are all implicated. Accounts of "disrupted" bodies (for example, phantom limb and dissociation of the self from the bod y, paralysis, and objectified bodies) are advanced in order to provide a co ntext for understanding the ways in which embodiment in virtual reality env ironments may be instantiated. The explicit claim that virtual reality is a n embodied experience and can facilitate the radical transfiguration of the body and its sensorial architecture is explored and evaluated.