Virtually Present, Physically Invisible: Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Mixed Reality Installation Carne y Arena

Abstract

This article proposes a media and philosophical analysis of Carne y Arena (2017), an immersive mixed reality installation by Mexican director Alejandro G. Iñárritu. Drawing from Chouliaraki’s notion of the “distant sufferer,” the article compares the medium specificity of television with the characteristics of mixed reality to question whether the gap between spectator and migrant can be bridged. The article analyzes how Carne y Arena positions its users not as spectators but as visitors or participants, thereby turning the “distant” sufferer into a “close and proximate” sufferer. To better understand how this immediacy effect is realized, the article introduces the concept of “intuition,” as theorized by the French philosopher Henri Bergson (1859–1941). In its closing section, the article discusses the ways in which Iñárritu’s work is part of a political intervention that proposes to challenge the limits of mediation and to promote social justice through feeling, acting, and knowing otherwise.