From: strength@milton.u.washington.edu (Julian Bleecker)
Subject: Re: VR (mis)-defined (was: VR defined)
Date: Sat, 2 Nov 1991 02:47:52 GMT
Organization: Human Interface Technology Lab  University of Washington, Seattle



In article <1991Nov1.173447.17104@milton.u.washington.edu> brucec@phoebus.
labs.tek.com (Bruce Cohen) writes:

>In article <1991Oct31.024551.366@milton.u.washington.edu> strength@milton.u.
>washington.edu (Julian Bleecker) writes:
>
>> Historically it seems as though there was a similar departure
>> between the camera obscura and photography.  The camera obscura
>> forced a removed, objective point-of-view, while the camera 
>> allowed the point-of-view to be placed within the eye (the camera
>> along with many new and radical dialogues on the physiology of
>> vision.) The camera proposed a new level of experiential truth as
>> did other mimetic techniques like cinema and video.  
>
>I agree that this is the essence of what is new about Virtual Reality:
>what's been called the "first person experience".  I've got to say I
>dislike the phrase "experiential truth"; is there really any more
>"truth" to this technique than others, or is it that the technique
>engages the attention and concern of the audience more than previous
>techniques?  I like to think of the development of more engaging media
>as the search for ways to  better match the material to be presented,
>whether it is a work of art, educational material, or whatever, to the
>ways humans have evolved to perceive and extract meaning from the world
>around them.

The question is not whether there is MORE truth to the technique of
VR.  Its really an issue beyond question.  VR will propose a new
truth, just as the camera proposed a new truth.  I say experiential
because we gather data on truth based on empirical methods.

I think you'll get yourself in a lot of trouble if you propose that
the "development of more engaging media [is] the search for ways to
better match the material to be presented..."  It is pretty well accepted
(I believe) that culturally and aesthetically we are beyond the stage
of accepting image as a reflection of some basic reality (whether it
be a physical work of art or some true educational method).  That was
Renaissance, perspective and Descartes.  We are moving from Baudrillard's
second to his third phase of the image:

	1) the image is the reflection of a basic reality
	2) the image masks and perverts a basic reality
	3) the image masks the ABSENCE of a basic reality
	4) the image bears no relation to any reality whatever, it
	   is its own pure simulacrum

For the most part we are in the third phase - post-modernity and Dan Rather.
I too would like to think that the search for more engaging media is a
quest for better representation of certain material, but then I feel
i'm being lied to by Dan Rather and accept that he is lying to me.  That
awareness keeps my head above water.  Most people are sullenly drowning.

>> VR will (again, maybe) propose an entirely new level of verisimillitude
>> that could have profound implications (beyond what is expected from
>> evolutionary expectations of a new technology being "better" than
>> the previous).

>For the same reason, I object to the term "versimilitude", though I've
>used it myself in this context before.  After realizing that much of the
>sophisticated world design will bear no direct resemblance to any
>current consensual reality, and that there will be a large set of
>ethical and moral issues revolving around the "truth", "correctness"
>political or otherwise, or fidelity to the "real world" of these
>designs, I've decided that using any term which implies a judgement in
>respect to these qualities is probably asking for unnecessary
>controversy.  So I've come to prefer the terms "first-person", and
>"highly reactive" as qualities of the medium and the experience, and
>"engaging" as a quality of the design that the medium expresses.

Ah!  You do realize that we are transitioning to Baudrillard's third 
and it sounds like you accept that VR will put us in the third, perhaps 
the fourth!  But you must realize that there of course will be ethical and
moral issues, but if everything goes according to plan, there will certainly
not be any ethical or moral questions - mostly because you don't want to
ask for unnecessary controversy.  Shit, ask for it!

-julian

Embrace the Vernacular