Paper short abstract:

Supported by technology, remote collaboration has become increasingly common. This presentation deals with the combined use of telepresence robotics (TPR) and virtual reality (VR) components and describes and discusses the effects of this TeleVR system on situations, presences, and practices.

Paper long abstract:

Regardless of whether technical systems support, enable, accelerate, or take over work (related) tasks, and regardless of whether their use is prescribed, necessary or sought, they impact doings, sayings, sense-making, and presences. Thus, practices vary not only with the tasks and work relations but also with the ‘sociomaterial entanglements’ in question. However, consequences for emerging situations or the experience of human-technology(-human) relations are neither unilateral nor inevitable. Instead, we find a whole spectrum of effects and ways of dealing with, e.g., affordances. For instance, research about various kinds of communication media used in the context of collaborative remote work emphasizes the extension or augmentation of situations, e.g., through information, while others deal with deficiencies such as limited situational presence or ‘real world’ effect.

Technological developments will change this spectrum and require new or modified practices, e.g., when telepresence robotics (TPR) and virtual reality (VR) components are used for remote collaboration. Drawing on preliminary insights of using these technologies in combination (TeleVR), I will present, discuss, and theorize observed practices when remote users can act through a TPR in a real physical environment, which can appear and be experienced as extremely realistic through VR hard- and software.