Abstract

Image of the Road (Kirwan and Pruciak 2013–2015) and Virtual Realis (Pruciak 2023) are travelogue video projects selected as a vantage point from which to examine our understanding of image since the disappearance of the frame and collapse of the cinematic form in VR video. Exploring the concept ‘frame’ in dialogue with theories of cinema and VR and an analysis of VR video’s characteristics, we question whether it may effect changes of perception and new understandings of the road as a virtual site/sight explored by travellers. We suggest that VR video’s ‘unframedness’ gives the unlimited freedom that allows a cognitive shift in the experience of non-narrative travelogues. This allows an inherent potential for an experience of transcendence akin to the overview effect. VR video gives spectators the opportunity of making autonomously their own journey and thus encountering new understandings and experiences in the travelogues presented to them.