Virtual Bodies: An Extension of the Real Self

"The virtual traveler sees and interacts with bodies, not minds, and she must be inclined to deny the traditional hierarchy in which we are minds and merely have bodies." 

(from Remediation: Understanding New Media by Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin, p.249)

 

 

This statement goes against what most people probably believe about virtual reality. We tend to have an idea that human beings are spirits or souls with bodies, and these bodies are just vessels for our spirits. However, this quote suggests that virtual reality is a different form of reality and that people within the virtual space are just as real as we are in the real world. In the virtual world, we are not interacting with another person's mind or soul, but a different version of that person entirely.

 

Take social media sites, for instance.  Although we don't physically appear on Facebook or Instagram (in the flesh and blood sense) we do appear there in a different way. It may just be words on a page or a few pictures, but those forms of media contain the inner essence of a person. It may be different, but that doesn't necessarily make it fake. As an introverted person, I tend to be much more animated and can express my thoughts more freely through mediums like social media sites (or this blog) than I do in a public place. My shy, quiet, introverted side seen in public isn't a "fake" version of me, nor is the witty or thoughtful version of myself that appears on social media. Both versions are just as real, and at times they may switch places. I may not post anything online for a while (staying quiet or shy), while in the real world I'm being animated and funny and expressive. 

 

Again, people who are interacting with me (whether in real life or in a virtual space) aren't seeing a fake version of me, but a different version of the same person. In this way, the "virtual traveler" is an extension of the physical body traveling through a virtual world.

A Debate About Art and Technology

Since there has been technology there as been a debate about what is art and what is not. For instance, many people argue that electronic music isn't nearly at the same caliber as music created on an instrument like a guitar or piano. One argument suggests that electronic music can't possibly recreate the same sound as an actual guitar, nor is the process of creating the music the same: instead of manipulating your hands into specific positions and training your body to produce the correct sound, you merely press a button in some cases.

As technology becomes more advanced there are more people arguing for and against the use of electronics to create art. However, more people seem to be accepting that digital art is an acceptable kind of art. You may not be painting a portrait with paint and a brush on a canvas, but it can be just as difficult and require as much practice to get a computer program to "paint" the same portrait.

The following videos contain what I would consider various forms of art. The first video is a recording of a concert that involves real and artificial "artists." The singer is actually a hologram, and the vocals were produced electronically. Notice that there are also live musicians on the stage. I would consider this concert a collaboration between a number of artists from different fields. The instrumentalists are certainly artists, as music is an art. The hologram isn't what I would call an artist, but she is definitely a work of art created by computer programmers and engineers who learned how to manipulate computer programs to create visual and audio art.

The second video comes from a movie I am a huge fan of. Final Fantasy: Advent Children is an amazing work of cinematic art, which involved a collaboration between writers (artists), computer programers (artists), voice actors (artists) and probably many more types of artists in charge of types of art I may not even be aware of. The visuals within the movie could compete with the best realism drawers or painters, and undoubtedly it took a lot of skill to learn how to manipulate the programs required to create the movie.

Digital art does not need to be automatically cast aside just because it doesn't produce "organic" or "real" artwork that must be touched with the artist's hand. The definition of art is very broad and includes unrelated things like painting, dancing, and culinary arts. Why should digital art be any different?

Is the Internet Overwhelming or Helpful?

When asked the question "Is the Internet a distracting and dizzying or does it allow our inquiries to be 'free flowing and uninterrupted'?" my first inclination is to say yes, the Internet is often a dizzying place.

Firstly, the Internet is so full of websites and various information that it is easy to get distracted and lost. A simple Google search for "pizza recipes" leads you down a rabbit hole of words and images related to food that may or may not be pizza, and then you find yourself looking at a recipe for cocktails and then...Oooo, look, there's a sale at Shoedazzle.com! You click on the Shoe Dazzle advertisement, browse shoes for a while and then....oh I need a handbag to match my new pair of heels (if I even decide to buy them. I mean, I could find a cheaper pair on Amazon.com.) So you go to Amazon.com and browse shoes for a while, then clothes, then electronics, then movies. You suddenly wonder if there are any good secondhand movies for sale on Craigslist. They will almost certainly be cheaper. Off to Craiglist.com, where you find not only movies, but halfway decent cars for sale in your area, along with a few people desperately looking for a "date" for the night. Well, that's too creepy, but maybe there will be some decent people on Match.com......Wait....what did I go online for in the first place?

The Internet has so much information and resources that you can hypothetically find just about anything you need with a few simple clicks. However, the Internet is full of things just waiting to distract you from all the information you really wanted. Yes, the Internet is a well of nearly limitless knowledge, but there's just so many distractions that is can be overwhelming to many people.

Oh, right! I wanted pizza!

New Technology, New Joys and Sorrows

Recently the laptop I'd been using for about three years died a sudden, unexpected death. My little Dell had been a loyal and efficient piece of technology, and a huge upgrade from the ancient laptop I'd used before it. As it turns out, my laptop hadn't been a particularly good model by computer standards, but to me it was great.

It's a little bizarre how attached we become to our devices. One of my most expensive and most awesome purchases in high school was my iPod Touch, which is more than outdated by today's standards. It glitches from time to time and will likely need to be replaced (which I'm actually looking forward to a lot), but it has been a great, loyal addition to my technology "family."

When my laptop died I immediately started looking for replacements. When I first got a laptop it was considered a privilege, but not at all necessary. It made writing my novels easier, but that wasn't even necessary since I could still write in a notebook with pen. Today, I NEED a laptop for school, trying to get my novels published, job searching, and keeping relationships strong with far-away friends. It's not a luxury to have a laptop anymore, but a necessity.

We become very personally attached to our gadgets. It's exciting to get a new one, and incredibly frustrating and disappointing when they don't work as well as they used to. At the same time, it's a machine that very quickly becomes obsolete and outdated within a few years. While we are being attached to these inanimate objects, we must also remain very distant because they will only last for a couple years at best.

It's a very strange balance in the technologically advanced world we live in.

That's One Smart Room!

In David Weinberger's book "Too Big To Know: Rethinking Knowledge Now That the Facts Aren't the Facts, Experts are Everywhere, and the Smartest Person in the Room is the Room Itself," we find another book the delves into the technology takeover that we call "modern society."

When I first read the phrase "the smartest person in the room is the room itself" in the title of the book, I immediately thought it meant that technology and the Internet have so overwhelmed society with information (so-called "facts") and wannabe "experts" that no person in the room was actually smart at all. I thought this phrase was Weinberger's cheeky way of saying that everyone in the room is so stupid that the room itself (an inanimate object) must contain more knowledge than they do.

As I started to read the book I was relieved that this wasn't going to be another one-sided "Google is making us stupid" argument. Instead, Weinberger explains what he meant on page thirteen of the prologue. The room is a collective network, much like the Internet, that combines all of the knowledge of the people within the room: the lecturer (aka "expert") and everyone present for the lecture, each of whom comes equipped with a lifetime of their own knowledge. The room then becomes a hot spot of knowledge because no single person in the room knows everything, but together they all have access to each others knowledge.

There's a flaw in this thinking, which is very similar to the flaw in the Internet and it's seemingly endless well of information. Everyone in the room may possess knowledge, but do they all possess facts? And if they do, does that make them all experts at something? Who decides what is a fact and what is not?

One of the worst uses of the Internet (or anything presented as "fact") occurs when people read something and automatically think that it is correct. The Internet has definitely made everyone an expert, and yet they may actually be another naive listener in a room with one "expert" sharing the knowledge they consider to be factual.

This doesn't mean that facts don't exist and you need to become a paranoid conspiracy theorist, but everyone should look at different aspects of a "fact" until they find what is true, or perhaps most true. In short, I encourage you to: