The Outcomes of Virtual Reality
We know our world through our senses — our ability to see, touch, smell, taste and hear — which we recognise and learn very early in life. Everything that we know about our reality comes from our use of senses; we see, hear, touch, smell and taste the entities around us, and that sensory information works with our brains sense-making mechanisms to form reality and understanding. In which, it stands to reason, that if we can present our senses with fabricated information, our perception of reality would change in response. One would be presented with an alternate version of reality that isn’t really there, but from your perspective it would be perceived as real. This is referred to as a virtual reality.
“As image media can be described in terms of their intervention in perception, in terms of how they organise and structure perception and cognition, virtual immersive spaces must be classed as extreme variants of image media that, on account of their totality, offer a completely alternative reality.
(Oliver Grau, Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion, p. 13.)
In the 1950’s Morton Heilig created a device called the ‘Sensorama’. It was a multi-sensory machine that used a stereoscopic colour display, fans to situate various climates and weather conditions, odour emitters, a stereo-sound system, and a motional chair. Heilig not only saw theatre as a way to engage an audience in an experience, but believed that it could activate all of the senses, thus drawing the audience into a more realistic, emotional and fully-immersive experience. He explained his concept in a 1955 paper, “The Cinema of the Future,” and built a prototype in 1962.
Although Heilig did not invent virtual reality, his Sensorama may be classed as a predecessor of virtual reality. Since Heilig’s invention, and particularly in the past decade, virtual reality has escalated immensely with it’s technological advances and development. Some of the primary uses of virtual reality include:
Education
Virtual reality is now being used in schools and education systems to help students gain a better understanding of a subject. An example is MIT Media Lab Learning Initiative, who designed a game with a goal to perform a sequence of actions in a virtual kitchen environment with the correct set of objects, and doing so, learn the terms in a different language. Semiotics confirm that a user of any spoken language can look at a tree, the tree being a signifier, and understand what it is. The changing factor is the signified, depending on the language they speak. In English it remains ‘tree,’ in French it becomes ‘arbre,’ in Croatian it becomes ‘drvo’ and so on. The game presents the user with a universal signifier and educates them of a new signified meaning — in this case a new spoken language.
“Our findings support the idea that virtual reality can benefit from explicit kinesthetic elements to enhance language learning activities. But beyond the numbers, we can also imagine a future were learning a new language is more engaging and playful. Instead of sitting down and memorizing lists of words, out of context (and quite possibly meaningless to the student), we can engage our bodies and tap into the physicality of language both to learn better and engage better with the class.”
(Christian David Vázquez Machado, MIT Media Lab Learning Initiative: Kinesthetic Language Learning in Virtual Reality).
Military Training
The military in both the UK and the US have begun using virtual reality as it allows them to undertake a huge range of simulations, such as flight, vehicle, the battlefield, medical training, and virtual boot-camp. Virtual reality can place a user in a variety of scenarios and environments, and it can safely simulate a dangerous situation, therefore reducing injury and loss during training. However, it is to be debated whether using a simulation for a life threatening scenario allows the user to fully engage, as human error is most likely to vary when you are aware you’re in a simulation in comparison to being at gunpoint, in a collapsing building, or reviving somebody at the brink of death.
In the 2016 biographical drama film ‘Sully’ they use virtual reality to simulate a plane crash that had already occurred, to see whether or not the pilot Chesley Sullenburger had time to reach a runway safely, instead of executing a water landing as he did. The crash shockingly resulted in zero casualties, however Sullenberger still had to undertake a court case where they simulated the flight with exactly the same parameters and factors of the incident. After several simulations show that a runway landing would’ve been possible, Sullenberger argued that the simulations weren’t realistic in the sense that human emotion and human error hadn’t been taken into account. This is a valid example of virtual reality only being realistic to a certain extent, the film being based on a true story.
By 2022, as much as $11 billion will go to virtual, augmented and mixed reality training systems, with virtual reality becoming a primary focus of military innovation.
Entertainment
Unsurprisingly, the video-game industry is one of the largest proponents of virtual reality. Developers ‘Oculus VR’ released a device called Oculus Rift, and after initiating a Kickstarter campaign in 2012, managed to raise $2.4 million from around 10,000 contributors. Two years later, the company was bought by Facebook for $2 billion.
We live in an era of social media escapism where we take out our phones to escape further into the screen, placing greater importance on the documenting of an experience rather than the experience itself. Virtual reality stands out as one of the select new experiences that allows for complete escape, but demands your complete presence. You may not be in the physical world, but you find yourself immersed in a new one.
The use of simulation in this particular area is about more than just entertainment — it takes escapism to the next level. The interface makes you, as a user, feel physically ‘in touch’ with the image, using more than just your sense of sight. It embodies you right into the centre of a literal virtual world, made to be as realistic as possible. It allows a complete change of perspective. You can put yourself into the position of another, feel what they feel, and understand their point of view, so in some cases, opens a gateway to their opinions and beliefs.
Furthermore, virtual reality helps to encourage empathy and ethical movement, allowing us to connect with humanity in a deeper sense. The 2015 virtual reality film, ‘Clouds Over Sidra’ by Gabo Aroma and Chris Milk features a twelve year old girl in the Za’atari camp in Jordan, home to 84,000 Syrian refugees. Early on in the film you find yourself sitting opposite Sidra whilst she tells you her story. Later you watch as long lines of Syrian children walk through the camp, some looking into the camera as they pass. The film makes you feel immersed in that moment, as if you’re standing in the camp as the children look right into your eyes and pass by you. Whilst Sidra tells you her story, you find yourself sat down next to her at eye level on the floor.
“…you’re not watching it through a television screen, you’re not watching it through a window, you’re sitting there with her. When you look down, you’re sitting on the same ground that she’s sitting on. And because of that, you feel her humanity in a deeper way. You empathize with her in a deeper way.”
Identity
In this day and age we find ‘identity’ is witnessing radical metamorphosis, as we are able to escape and become whatever we want to be. There is a dividing line between the physical world and the virtual world, and your online presence (video games and social media) does not have to be directly impacted by the real world anymore. You can have an online or virtual identity — examples being catfishing, fandom personas and influencers — a space is created where you don’t have to be defined by your physical gender, age or race. Instead you can redefine your identity online.
“…it’s a very experiential medium. You feel your way inside of it. It’s a machine, but inside of it, it feels like real life, it feels like truth. And you feel present in the world that you’re inside and you feel present with the people that you’re inside of it with.”
Ernest Cline’s novel ‘Ready Player One’ was published in 2011, and not long after became a feature length film about a dystopian America in the 2040’s, where as the world descends into chaos and poverty due to climate change and a fossil fuel crisis. Most of its citizens spend their days in the OASIS, a virtual reality world created by the eccentric genius James Halliday.
Escapism is a clear major theme within the film as the physical world deteriorates, the global population choose to favour their digital world, the OASIS. However not only do they want to escape the sadness and destruction they live in (we see Ohio turned into an environmentally depleted wasteland of stacked caravans reinforced with flimsy scaffolding, implemented by the government to ‘maximise space’), they choose to disappear into the OASIS because they can become anything they want to be. We see characters enter the virtual world to transform completely from their physical form, to become how they want to be represented. The narrative plays on how targeted users of virtual reality feel most comfortable within their virtual space.
“This is the OASIS. It’s a place where the limits of reality are your own imagination. You can do anything… go anywhere. [….] People come to the OASIS for all the things they can do, but they stay because of all the things they can be. Tall, beautiful, scary, a different sex, a different species, live-action, cartoon, it’s all your call.”
(Wade Watts [character], Ready Player One.)
