Virtual Reality
Reality is to trick the human senses, to help people believe and
uphold
an illusion. Virtual reality engineers are space makers, to a certain
degree
they create space for people to play around in. A space maker sets up
a world
for an audience to act directly within, and not just so the audience
can imagine
they are experiencing a reality, but so they can experience it
directly.
"The film maker says, 'Look, I'll show you.' The space maker says,
'Here,
I'll help you discover.' However, what will the space maker help
us
discover?" "Are virtual reality systems going to serve as
supplements
to our lives, or will individuals so miserable in their daily
existence find an
obsessive refuge in a preferred cyberspace? What is going
to be included,
deleted, reformed, and revised? Will virtual reality systems
be used as a means
of breaking down cultural, racial, and gender barriers
between individuals and
thus nurture human values?" During this century,
responsive technologies
are moving even closer to us, becoming the standard
interface through which we
gain much of our experience. The ultimate result
of living in a cybernetic world
may create an artificial global city. Instead
of a global village, virtual
reality may create a global city, the
distinction being that the city contains
enough people for groups to form
affiliations, in which individuals from
different cultures meet together in
the same space of virtual reality. The city
might be laid out according to a
three dimensional environment that dictates the
way people living in
different countries may come to communicate and understand
other cultures. A
special camera, possibly consisting of many video cameras,
would capture and
transmit every view of the remote locations. Viewers would
receive instant
feedback as they turn their heads. Any number of people could be
looking
through the same camera system. Although the example described here
will
probably take many years to develop, its early evolution has been under
way for
some time, with the steady march of technology moving from accessing
information
toward providing experience. As well, it is probably still
childish to imagine
the adoption of virtual reality systems on a massive
scale because the starting
price to own one costs about $300,000. Virtual
Reality is now available in games
and movies. An example of a virtual reality
game is Escape From Castle
Wolfenstein. In it, you are looking through
the eyes of an escaped POW from a
Nazi death camp. You must walk around
in a maze of dungeons were you will
eventually fight Hitler. One example of a
virtual reality movie is Stephen
King's The Lawnmower Man. It is about a
mentally retarded man that uses virtual
reality as a means of overcoming his
handicap and becoming smarter. He
eventually becomes crazy from his quest for
power and goes into a computer. From
there he is able to control most of the
world's computers. This movie ends with
us wondering if he will succeed in
world domination. From all of this we have
learned that virtual reality is
already playing an important part in our world.
Eventually, it will let
us be able to date, live in other parts of the world
without leaving the
comfort of our own living room, and more. Even though we are
quickly becoming
a product of the world of virtual reality, we must not lose
touch with the
world of reality. For reality is the most important part of
our
lives.
Bibliography
Bains, S. "Surgeons Slice a Virtual
Leg", New Scientist, Vol. 131,
Pg. 28, July 6, 1991 Baudrillard, J., The
Ecstasy of Communication, Translated
by Bernard and Caroline Schutze, New
York: Semiotext, 1987 Helsel, K. Virtual
Reality-Theory, Practice, and
Promise London: British Library, 1991 Neira, C.
"The CAVE: Autovisual
Experience Automatic Virtual Environment",
Communications of the ACM,
vol. 35, pg. 65-72, summer 1992 Venkat, P.
"Integrating Virtual Reality",
IEEE Transactions, vol. 36, pg. 35-38,
1991