Narrative Every Mo Virtual Reality

A summary of:
Ryan, M.-L. (2001). Narrative every bit Virtual Reality: Immersion as well as Interactivity inward Literature as well as Electronic Media. The Johns Hopkins University Press: Baltimore.
Introduction

This volume argues that at that spot has been a growing tendency toward participatory experiences amongst media, outset amongst painting, as well as then amongst literature, as well as right away continued inward imaginings nigh the technological possibilities of virtual reality: “The history of Western fine art has seen the ascension as well as autumn of immersive ideals, as well as their displacement, n the twentieth century, past times an aesthetics of play as well as self-reflexivity that eventually produced the ideal of an active participation of the appreciator – reader, spectator, user – inward the production of the text. This scenario affects both visual as well as literary art, though the immersive moving ridge peaked before inward icon than inward literature” (2).

Yet right away participatory literature has reached its inevitable determination inward the imminently participatory hypertext form, nigh which Ryan says, “this relative liberty has been hailed every bit an allegory of the vastly to a greater extent than creative as well as less constrained activity of reading every bit pregnant formation” (6). Hypertext is a production of its time, i.e. of the postmodern approach, of which cyberspace is besides participant: “The device besides favors a typically postmodern approach to writing closely related to what has been described past times Lévi-Strauss every bit bricolage (tinkering, inward Sherry Turkle’s translation). In this means of composition, every bit Turkle describes it (Life on the Screen, 50-73), the author does non adopt a ‘top-down’ method, starting amongst a given thought as well as breaking it downward into constituents, but proceeds ‘bottom-up’ past times plumbing fixtures together reasonably autonomous fragments, the verbal equivalent of objets trouvés, into an artifact whose shape as well as meaning(s) emerge through the linking process. The consequence is a patchwork, a collage of disparate elements, which Gilles Deleuze as well as Félix Guattari guide maintain called a ‘mechanic assemblage’ (A Thousand Plateaus, 332-35)” (7).

With undeniable postmodern influences, both hypertext as well as cyberspace are a reaction against postmodernism, what I would telephone telephone post-postmodernism, for lack of a ameliorate phrase: “Building interactivity into the object of a theoretical mystique, the ‘founding fathers’ of hypertext theory promoted the novel genre every bit an musical instrument of liberation from roughly of the most notorious bêtes noires of postmodern thought: linear logic, logocentrism, arborescent hierarchical structures, as well as repressive forms of power. George Landow writes, for instance, that hypertext embodies the ideal of a nonhierarchical, decentered, fundamentally democratic political organisation that promotes ‘a dialogic means of collective endeavor’ (Hypertext 2.0, 283)” (8). The of import indicate is that, similar amongst Wertheim’s book, Ryan’s explicates the production of a worldview, of which our relation to as well as agreement of cyberspace is but a part.

Ryan is non a huge fan of hypertext every bit a medium, as well as would probable concur amongst the ‘agnostics’ she refers to: “To the skeptical observer, the accession of the reader to the move of author – or ‘wreader,’ every bit roughly agnostics facetiously telephone telephone the novel move – is a self-serving metaphor that presents hypertext every bit a magic elixir: ‘Read me, as well as you lot volition have the gift of literary creativity’” (9). This passage inward item reminded me of the emphasis on “mass creativity” inward the basis of engineering scientific discipline (Internet engineering scientific discipline inward particular). Everyone is creative! Everyone’s inventiveness must live enabled! This was non e'er the case, as well as beingness such, nosotros must recognize the historical province of affairs of this belief as well as and then inquiry its unassailability.

In fact, to a greater extent than importantly, the utopian vision of the “freedom” that such a medium enables is, I would argue, the same illusory liberty people believe they volition expose inward the Internet. As Foucault reminds us (in the words of Ryan): “aesthetic pleasure, similar political harmony, is a thing non of unbridled license but of controlled freedom” (9). It’s giddy to holler upwards that hypertext equals consummate freedom; you lot are nevertheless constrained past times the links, as well as those made possible past times the author. Similarly, nosotros are much to a greater extent than bounded past times the Internet than nosotros claim to be, fooled past times the propaganda nigh its liberating potential. But this is non to tell that I holler upwards nosotros should strive for consummate freedom! Freedom is exclusively meaningful if it is liberty for something (rather than reactive, liberty from something). I merely wishing to indicate out firstly that nosotros are non every bit gratuitous every bit nosotros holler upwards nosotros are inward cyberspace, as well as secondly that it is worthwhile challenging the wisdom of “freedom” every bit an terminate inward itself.

Another crucial fleck of this Ryan volume has to make amongst what nosotros hateful when nosotros tell “virtual reality”. Ryan says, “I guide maintain suggested hither 3 distinct feel of virtual: an optical 1 (the virtual every bit illusion), a scholastic 1 (the virtual every bit potentiality), as well as an informal technological 1 (the virtual every bit the computer-mediated)” (13). The outset of these tin live traced from signification to simulation: “In pre-Renaissance times icon was to a greater extent than a symbolic representation of the spiritual essence of things than an endeavor to bring the illusion of their presence. Its semiotic means was signification rather than simulation” (2).

For Ryan, this is an of import issue: “On the shiny surface of signs – the signifier – at that spot is no room for bodies of either the actual or the virtual variety. But the recipient of total art, if nosotros dare to dream such a thing, should live no less than the champaign of report every bit Ignatius of Loyola defined it an ‘indivisible compound’ of heed as well as body. What is at stake inward the synthesis of immersion as well as interactivity is hence goose egg less than the participation of the whole of the private inward the artistic experience” (21). We shall run into inward later on chapters that immersion is the destination of all art, shared amongst VR technology; participation has become a destination of both; as well as utopian visioning nigh fine art as well as literature is non different from that of technology.