Virtual Culture

Alana Engelbrecht
25120914

"VR is not a state of consciousness or a simulated drug trip. VR is an emerging field of applied science". -Michael Heim

VR, or rather the definition for it, is still being debated in the modern world where it is still relatively new in terms of technology. I think what distinguishes VR from television, film and letters is that it has the combined functions of all the latter in one, among other things. VR uses the three I’s, immersion, interactivity and information intensity, to generate its success. It is capable of transporting the user to a ‘new place’. Making use of one’s different senses, VR equipment takes one to a virtual environment where anything is possible.

There is a big difference between the levels of interactivity between VR and television and film. When one watches a film one is restricted by the number of actions one can take. One is seen as the outsider, the spectator, and not part of what is being displayed. With VR one becomes the main attraction or the star of one’s own arena. It is no longer a matter of the simple passive observer but the creator and the actor.

Telepresence makes VR unique in the sense that one can be somewhere without physically being there. In terms of medicine it can be used to achieve great things where doctor no longer have to cut open patients to such a large extent. The fact that one can ‘be’ at a different location without really being there and interact with that environment at the same time surpass the function of a letter and numerous other things. In a VR the user can do almost anything his mind can conjure up. It surpasses older technologies easily as can be seen above.