I have come to the conclusion that talking about Virtual Reality publicly is a bad idea for my artistic career. I presume folks either think I'm crazy or a few decades late to the postmodern world.
When I say Virtual Reality, I tend to think of it as digital things, places, objects and materials such as the Internet, SketchUp, or Minecraft. Different environments alter human consciousness and I do not think these digital realms are any different. Having massive influences on how we communicate, distribute information, VR is challenging our perceptions of what is real and what is not, turning the pillars of philosophy up side down.
I try telling this to common folks and they just look at me weird. On the other hand, I want to talk about it with art peers and sometimes I feel like they are staring me down with the loudest "Duh" one could utter. To the former group of folks, I want to say go read some McLuhan, and consequently, the latter group may being saying the same thing to me. Thanks, I have, and then some.
I see this VR thing being worked out/on by artists of all sorts, but in very abstract manners. I know, that's art right? I argue that the source material strange enough; why are artist's making it more confusing?
Calling on abstract explanations of VR as modern day witchcraft or magic is unsettling for me, a rising theme in contemporary art I have noticed, including Neon-hippy or cyber-pagan expressions. I mean, I get it, when the notion of objects transcend physical law, defying gravity and begin to levitate in the digital spaces we inhabit, appears more common than actual grounded concepts of objects, there may be rise for any sort of reasoning. When a co-worker, an avide Minecraft player says, "You would think real life would be more interesting, but it isn't." I begin to worry, on some fundamental level, about the state and condition of human beings.
Casting off science and math as magic has always been a fools way of explaining that which is not commonly, publicly, or rationally understood. It's too simplistic. Indeed the power of influence that VR has is ominous, so I also wonder if these fantastic explanations are warranted in a way. Maybe a Virtual Reality is that much so, that these types of reactions are no longer ignorant or with out consideration. Maybe these explanations are the closest rational we can get to a real understanding of something so mind boggling.
Magical explanations, although they leave me stunned, in a paralyzed sort of way, are but one way to explain the influence of VR on the human conscious. In terms of identity, VR has influenced every notion of trans-person-ness in every which way. Which brings me back to my understanding of what VR is and what it means to me and my artistic interests. To me, VR is changing how we think of material. How materials ought to act, bend, and may be formed and manipulated. Changing material has been our first inclination toward a relationship with the earth. Now that material has been numerically coded, those limitations have been stretched so far, that it is hard to even see their origins. I fear we are literally losing touch with the previous understandings of the haptic world. Possibly, testing the limits of our notion of materials may set a new perspective of our own limitations, questioning just how far we want to influence how we see ourselves and how we see others.
Alas, I have been thinking about this subject of VR and how it is changing us, to the core of our being, every fucking day, every exhausting waking moment for well over two years and I am sick and tired of it. I'm tired, very tired. It has been a constant circular conversation that i just can't shut off or tune out. All this thinking and considering isn't getting my art work anywhere. It seems I need an equally outlandish explanation of VR of my own, just so I can move on.
In conclusion, a quote from an unknown-by-me source:
"I fully realize that I have not succeeded in answering all of your questions... indeed, I feel I have not answered any of them completely. The answers I have found only serve to raise a whole new set of questions, which only lead to more problems, some of which we weren't even aware were problems.
To sum it up... in some ways, I feel we are as confused as ever, but I believe we are confused on a higher level, and about more important things."
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