Virtual Reality — Filling in the Gaps

I did some painting at the film festival on Saturday. They had this cool simulator that allowed you to make virtual neon brush strokes against a mountainous desert background. It was kind of like one of those gymnastics routines where you twirl ribbons, only the ribbons were infinitely long and stayed in the air once you hiked them up. I have seen things like this on TV before, but it feels so much more real in person (which is ironic, considering that it actually isn’t “real” in the first place). I kept wanting to reach out and touch the lines I had suspended in the air, or at least walk through them, but I couldn’t because they were simply virtual. Just a collection of pixels or whatever they use to make those things. They only existed in the world of that headset, but they felt real all the same. This makes me think of our profound/shallow binary. I think it’s interesting how a virtual tool (which can be considered “shallow” because it’s intangible and inaccessible to most of our senses) can be used to enhance our interactions with the real world (which has both tangible and intangible aspects, thus making it more profound, in a way). The real world, albeit full of physical objects, has a lot of empty space. I think that VR can be used to fill that space in a meaningful way. Instead of filling your room with junk, you can build an archery simulator, or a cave excavation, or a trek up Mt. Everest (if you have the knowledge to do so, of course). Electronic technology can be used to make something out of nothing, improving our life experience in the process.