Audrey Moutat
University of Limoges
Centre de Recherches Sémiotiques (CeReS)
From Design to Immersion: Spatial Dynamics in Digital Environments
Keynote talk – 9 September 2026 – 11h
This study offers a semiotic analysis of the computational methods used to create video game environments. We will demonstrate how the mechanisms for constructing digital worlds, on the one hand, and the experience of those worlds, on the other, challenge the concept of spatiality, whose meanings already vary according to different epistemic frameworks.
Indeed, when developing these digital environments, tools such as text editors and game engines generate spaces governed by computational logic and precise algorithmic rules that shape very distinct creative spaces. The experience of these environments is based on a fusion of the real and the virtual made possible by the use of immersive technologies, resulting in hybrid spaces that redefine the modalities of embodiment and corporeality.
This presentation will outline a typology of virtual spaces by examining their design and uses. By comparing creators’ intentions with users’ spatial practices, we shed light on the processes of hybridization at work. Our analysis focuses on the interface between physical and digital worlds, which we view as a boundary that reveals new modes of interaction.
Biography
Audrey Moutat is a Lecturer [Maître de Conférence] in Language Sciences and Information and Communication Sciences at the University of Limoges, where she teaches semiotics, communication, and user experience design in the field of digital media. A researcher at the Centre for Semiotic Research [Centre de Recherches Sémiotiques], her work focuses on sensory discourses (texts, photographs, painting, digital art), the semiotics of perception, and sensory enunciation, as well as experiential writing practices for digital objects. She has published several articles on these topics, along with two books: Du sensible à l’intelligible. Pour une sémiotique de la perception (2015) by Lambert-Lucas, and Son et sens (2019) by Presses Universitaires de Liège, Sigilla series. She is also Assistant Secretary (external communications) of the French Semiotics Association (AFS).
Selected Publications
Moutat, Audrey (2026), « Effets de réalité dans la virtualité. Étude de la simulation des phénomènes naturels dans la réalité virtuelle », in Beyaert-Geslin & Forthoffer (éds.), Le vivant comme effet de sens, Pessac, Presses Universitaires de Bordeaux, Collection PrimaLun@ 36, 2026, 43-60. https://una-editions.fr/effets-de-realite-dans-la-virtualite/
Audrey Moutat (2025), « Espaces d’écriture et de vécu des mondes numériques », Signata, 16 | 2025. http://journals.openedition.org/signata/6137
Moutat, Audrey (2025), « Prolégomènes à une sémiotique des mondes numériques », Lexia, in Châtenet & giuliana (éds), Semiovers : sémiotique des mondes virtuels et numériques, Saggi di Lexia, Ariccia, Aracne.
Moutat, Audrey (2025), « Apport de la sémiotique dans la modélisation de l’expérience utilisateur des interfaces numériques », in Biglari (éd.), La sémiotique et ses horizons, Paris, L’Harmattan, 455-471.
Châtenet, Ludovic, Moutat, Audrey (2024), Tactilité du visuel et mondes numériques, Visible, 13. Disponible sur : https://doi.org/10.25965/visible.726
Moutat, Audrey (2020), « Écriture et matérialité numérique, de la substance aux formes de l’expression », Semen, 49. Disponible sur : https://doi.org/10.4000/semen.14475