From: evenson@hitl.washington.edu (Mark Evenson)
Subject: Re: PHIL: Use of "VR" term
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1992 09:20:44 GMT
Message-ID: <EVENSON.92Apr7012044@jabberwock.hitl.washington.edu>
Organization: R+D Hipsters @ virtual HITLab, Ithaca


In article <1992Apr5.180557.10458@u.washington.edu>
lwl@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Lydia Leong) writes:
[...]

   Most MUDders wouldn't claim that MUDs are Virtual Reality in the sense
   the word is used in the academic world. I think they're a step in the
   right direction (especially Tiny-variety MUDs, which are least as much
   'VR' as the Lucasfilm Habitat, IMHO), but they aren't Virtual Reality;
   that term, in an academic context, is reserved for a graphically-based
   world which one interacts with directly.

   I suppose you could call VR anything which is a computer mock-up of a
   universe with which one could somehow interact, but you're then getting
   into too broad of a definition -- are regular video games VR? standard
   text adventure games? I think not.

   VR as used by MUDders is just a convenience term.
[...]

Not really, as it seems to reflect an emerging trope in the cultural
studies part of the academy.  

For example, the Gulf War becomes the first VR war not so much because of
the configuration of F117A cockpits, but how the war was ``fought'' out
over CNN in a series of ``virtual realities'' (i.e. Smart Weapon VR,
Pentagon briefing chart VR, Iraqi TV's VR . . .)

And the stock market is a kind of virtual reality--the current bull market
as not being tied in *any* way to an economic reality (or at least
apparently functioning independently).

As shorthand, I think a fair first iteration of the use of ``virtual
reality'' as a term in academic cultural discourse would show a common
heritage with the notion of ``ideology'' as used by the succesors to
Gramsci.

And as I complementary term, this same emergent discourse uses
``cyberspace'' to denote the space engendered by the play of distributed
telecomputing technologies.

Whether the dominantly technological-orientated *posters* to this newsgroup
think this is a fair distinction (who knows about the lurkers?), might be
an interesting thread.  But I think there is a pretty good rationale
for the distinction I've laid out.  But this is useless unless others
think it's usefull. . .

Too bad that that the Third Conference on Cyberspace got canned for the
year--I was looking forward towards attending a conference at which the
``technologists'' (re)engaged the ``discursive'' virtual worlds enthusiasts.

I (like many?) look forward to the days in which this distinction is merely
historical, and the VR researcher is both technologically and discursively
oriented.  Of course, she already is:  she just doesn't know it.