  Virtual meetings have become increasingly common with modern video-conference
and collaborative software. While they allow obvious savings in time and
resources, current technologies add unproductive layers of protocol to the flow
of communication between participants, rendering the interactions far from
seamless. In this work we introduce Remote Proxemics, an extension of proxemics
aimed at bringing the syntax of co-located proximal interactions to virtual
meetings. We propose Eery Space, a shared virtual locus that results from
merging multiple remote areas, where meeting participants' are located
side-by-side as if they shared the same physical location. Eery Space promotes
collaborative content creation and seamless mediation of communication channels
based on virtual proximity. Results from user evaluation suggest that our
approach is effective at enhancing mutual awareness between participants and
sufficient to initiate proximal exchanges regardless of their geolocation,
while promoting smooth interactions between local and remote people alike.
These results happen even in the absence of visual avatars and other social
devices such as eye contact, which are largely the focus of previous
approaches.
