Virtuality

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Virtuality
Rather than approaching the medium as a means of
escape into some disembodied techno-utopian
fantasy, I see it as a means of return, i.e. of
facilitating a temporary release from our
habitual perceptions and culturally-biased
assumptions about being in the world, to enable
us, however momentarily, to perceive ourselves
and the world around us freshly. (CHAR DAVIES)
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dagens menu

• Campanella
• Frasca
• Grau
• Kusahara
• Seminar Rez
• Øvelser THE IDEA is born

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Practical info

• Synopser questions?
• Blog nominations!?
• How exercises will continue
• Any one hanging without a group?

Postmodern virtualization of reality (Lévy,
Hayles) Also related to the hyperreal
(Baudrillard)
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Virtuality

• Potentiality (Medieval origin, virtualis, virtue)
  Doesnt exist but could exist
• Simulation. As opposed to real, couldnt exist,
  illusion, fakeness.
• Everyday language pseudo/nearly

place
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immersion
Postmodern virtualization of reality (Lévy,
Hayles) Also related to the hyperreal
(Baudrillard)
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Blackboard model
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Webcams Campanella

• Simple technology that is changing how we think
  of space and distance (69) They reduce the size
  of the earth
• Telepresence definition (27) We are present in
  the other environment and viceversa, reciprocal
• They create places in cyberspace, not only show
  places (ex NY)
• History of webcams (Mars Pathfinder as
  confirmation)
• Cameras feeding voyeurs around the world, ex.
  jenniCam

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Webcams Campanella

• American dialectics urban vs nature, paradox of
  technology to return to nature
• Osmose as glimpse of the mythic garden
  (simulacrum, VR)
• Dangers Orwell, Panopticon

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Telepresence Kusahara

• Tests our ideas about presence and absence, seen
  and being seen, manipulating and being
  manipulated (199)
• Examples of telerobotics doll, telegarden
• Difficulties of acquiring knowledge by
  telerobotic means. How do I know that the garden
  exists?
• This technology creates huge distance, ex of
  Stelarc and pain. (Interesting opposite to
  immersion)
• This kind of art makes us reflect about our
  mediated society

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Webcams Night and Day

• How are we present in these other places?
• Issues of verosimilitude and truthfulness of
  images
• Telepresence Spatial experience no longer
  dependant of physical experience. Location
  independent of the body. An epistemology without
  a subject. (Grau 287)

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Cybergeography Troels Degn Johansson

• A second age of geographical exploration
  (re-discovering the world through GIS) New
  terrains to chart, ex of krak, google earth
• Cyberspace as an extension of place a new field,
  not representations of real place (ex www
  addresses)

- Visualization in Cybergeography LINK
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give us a break!!!
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Telepistemology

• Telepistemology Descartes Last Stand By
  Dreyfuss
• Descartes and indirect access to reality, only
  sure of the mind, a come back?
• Contested by pragmatics, existential
  phenomenologists and linguists. Metaphysics and
  ontology win.
• Study of telepresence might help us appreciate
  the difference between direct and mediated
  perception
• Funny that people want to throw themselves into
  telepresence

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Virtual Art Grau
book intro argh!

• How VR fits in the history of illusion (numerous
  examples panorama) Reality always mediated by
  senses or media
• VR changes our idea of images, real images mixed
  with virtual simulacrum, link to Gibson
• Illusion/Artificial Worlds usually fill the
  observers field of vision (frescos), but screen
  also can get u immersed. Perspective not only
  linear, open space
• VR a higher level than representation (17)
• Mimesis (Classic illusion)
• VR Intensifies suggestive image and suspend
  separation subject/object

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Immersion Grau (13)

• Mentally absorbing
• A passage from one mental state to another
• Diminishing critical distance to what is shown
• Increasing emotional involvement
• Apparently present within image (14)
• All senses involved more intensive (15)

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Virtual Art Characteristics Grau

• Centered on participation as originated in the
  avant-garde
• Immaterial (prerequisite for the highest possible
  degree of variability and the basis for
  interaction)
• Works are processual, unfinished, open (Eco), no
  self-contained in Heideggers way
• Work of art as a discrete object disappears

?
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Osmose Grau

• promotes a new stage in an intimate
  mind-expanding synthesis with technology
• natural interface a new level in the history of
  ideas and images of illusionism
• A new kind of aesthetics and reception

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Simulation Frasca

• Article alternative to narrative approach to
  games how to convey ideas through games
  (aest.com.)
• Boal as example combining interactivity and
  narrative, how to change things
• Opposition Paidia-Ludus (Spil-Leg)

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Representation VS Simulation

• Looks like the object
• Produces signs
• Can include narrative
• Ex. Germinal

• Not only looks but behaves like the object
• Models systems
• Includes processes
• Trad. To predict complex behavior
• Ex. Age of Empires

Watching results can look the same
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Levels of simulation

• Representation (like other art, ex. Skins in
  Quake)
• Manipulation rules (possibilities for player, ex
  GTA)
• Goal rules (Necessary to win game)
• Meta-rules (How to alter game, ex. Mods)

You communicate more powerfully if at a higher
level
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Seminar Rez

• Is it a simulation?
• How does it work?
• Relationship to other themes in session virtual
  reality, immersion

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Til næste gang

• Check out blog during week to see updates and
  maybe comment on each other? (feedback on Monday)
• Read
• AARSETH, Espen. 1994. Nonlinearity and Literary
  Theory. In Landow, Hyper/Text/Theory. This
  edition 2003.MONFORT/WARDRIP-FUIN. The New Media
  Reader. Cambridge, MA MIT Press. (pp. 762-780)
• DOUGLAS, Jane Yellowlees. 2000. The End of Books
  or Books Without End? Reading Interactive
  Narratives. Michigan Ann Arbor. (pp. 37-62)
  Read Fibonnacis Daughter
• MATEAS, Michael. 2001. A preliminary poetics for
  interactive drama and games. In Digital
  Creativity, vol. 12, no.3. (pp. 140-152) Read
  Façade
• RYAN, Marie-Laure. 2001. Beyond Myth and
  Metaphor. The Case of Narrative in Digital
  Media. In Gamestudies, vol 1, issue 1. Read
  Online Caroline

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