CRDM 701

Week 9 - Jon

In the opening paragraph of Digital Sensations, Ken Hillis describes how VR "has become something of a household term. Discussion in popular media abounds, and a number of speculative, promotional books on the subject have achieved mass-market success" (xiii). I agree that, for at least the last fifteen years, there has been a lot of buzz around VR. I can remember when The Lawnmower Man came out and being amazed at the VR experience.  However, other than glossy stories in computer magazines like Wired and the occasional movie reference or news story, how accessible is VR actually? Although VR sounds amazing, my closest experience with it has been walking past the "VR Rollercoaster" at the mall, or viewing something that, from what I understand, is meant to mimic some tiny, tiny slice of the VR experience, such as an IMAX movie (not interactive, but very loud and big). As Hillis discusses, there are numerous military applications for the technology, but I am wondering when the technology will become available to anyone but the "well-heeled." Moreover, even when we do have access, will our experience be the incredibly advanced VR that we have seen in movies? For example, as described by Bolter and Grusin, the technology (as of 2000) contains "many ruptures : slow frame rates, jagged graphics, bright colors, bland lighting, and system crashes" (22). VR has existed in the media for so long that I am wondering if it will live up to its billing. Will MMORPG players, for example, ever be pulled away from their WoW interface to be immersed in a VR world?

The idea of virtual tourism was also interesting. Hillis describes how students are told that "they will not need to visit places such as the Peruvian Andes. Instead, they will enter a VE simulation of this far-off reality and, by engaging with a series of interactive images, obtain an experience as good as being there" (xix). In the context of some of the other things we have read, especially Sontag's writing on photography, it is difficult to equate the VR tourism experience as being just as "good as being there." By traveling to a place through VR, it doesn't seem like tourists will obtain the sense of documentation and narrative that go hand in hand with traveling. Individuals, smiling of course, pose, capture, and recreate their story in a photo album, a creation that may or may not represent their actual journey. In VR, I don't know if such access to narrative construction (with the tourists beings the main characters) will be available.

However, at the same time, the VR tourist will not be able to use a camera to, essentially, deal with all things foreign and reconstruct their experience. So, camera-less, the experience of a VR tourist may, in fact, end up being more real than the actual experience, for the camera is removed. Each tourist is left to experience only with their eyes and to use only words to describe their journey.

All of that said, we do have immediate access to other non-HMD style technologies, as indicated by Bolter and Grusin, that establish a flavor of "transparent immediacy" through "nonimmersive digital graphics-that is, in two- and three-dimensional images projected on to traditional computer, film, or television screens" (23). Bolter and Grusin move on to discuss the significance of linear perspective and digital photorealism, ultimately, the erasure of the human element from a photograph: "Computer graphics experts do not in general imitate "poor" or "distorted" photographs (exotic camera angles or lighting effects), precisely because these distorted photographs, which make the viewer conscious of the photographic process, are themselves not regarded as realistic or immediate" (28). I recently played a game that combined some of these elements (linear perspective, photo realism, an interactive interface) into a single experience. The game, Dark Cut 2, which came out about two days ago, is a free flash game that drops players into a Civil War medical tent, where they must perform surgeries on critical patients. Feel free to give it a try, but, I must warn you, the game is extremely graphic and unsettling. Anyway, there is no movement in the game; you are presented with what is, essentially, a Photoshop generated image of a wounded soldier. The image is, however, very real. The perspective is spot on, at no point does the game present players with anything but the surgeon's perspective on the patient. For example, there is no zooming in or out or floating about. The perspective is fixed. You interact with the patient by choosing one of many period medical tools and carrying out the surgery. While picking out instruments, the sounds of an ongoing Civil War battle burst through the speakers and flashes of light, simulating gunshots, periodically blanket the screen. Even though the experience is historical and viewed through a computer screen, when played in a dark room the experience is very, very real. I've been playing games since I was 5, and I can't recall a gaming experience that had my heart beating in time with the game like this one.  The ending of the game, which I won't disclose here, makes the game and its immersive qualities shockingly real. 

Lastly, in the context of this discussion of removing any trace of photography from the photograph, filmmaker from the film, etc., it is interesting to think about moments when just the opposite happens -- when someone flubs in the editing process and any notion of transparency is, temporarily, removed. The most popular example I can think of is in Braveheart during a battle scene. It seems that battles are shot in such a way that they capture an incredibly heightened sense of transparency. However, in this instance, someone, I don't remember who or how exactly, is struck with a weapon and, instead of the results of the blow remaining within the perspective of the film's setting, the blood splashes the glass plane between the audience and the action. Thus, for that split second, the audience is reminded that what they are seeing is just a movie. Any connection with the content of the film is pushed away with a reminder of the medium. Or, at the same time, the shot could have been edited out, so does such an effect actually heighten a moviegoer's experience?

Posted at 01:31PM Oct 24, 2007 by jtburr in Week 9  |  Comments[1]