Communications in Humanities Research ISSN: 2753-7072
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Research Article

Mediatory Architectures in Immersive Exhibition Design: Structuring Perception, Emotion, and Knowledge

Zhineng DingNortheast Normal University*

* Corresponding author: [email protected]

Abstract

This paper theorizes immersive exhibition design as a form of mediatory architecture—a space that choreographs perceptual, emotional, and epistemic experience. Grounded in cognitive aesthetics, spatial theory, and media studies, the model offers an integrative approach to understanding how immersive environments structure meaning. It names four central mechanisms - Frame (spatial structure), Flow (emotional sequencing), Focus (interactive attention), and Feedback (embodied response) - as structural pillars of immersive experience, and offers a structurally rigorous model for exhibitions as knowledge-producing environments to replace spectacle-based readings of immersive art discourse. The research requires empirical validation in the form of space-syntax mapping, eye-tracking, and presence measurement, and directs attention to the ethical responsibility of designing cognitively and culturally meaningful experiences. Moving beyond spectacle-related interpretations, this integrative approach provides a formal model of exhibitions as epistemic environments.

Keywords: Mediatory Architectures; Immersive Exhibition Design; Cognitive–Epistemic Framework; Spatial Mediation; Presence&Embodied Feedback
Published: November 11, 2025
DOI: 10.54254/2753-7064/2025.BJ29464
Volume: CHR Vol.96
pp. 34-44
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