Virtual Culture

Megan du Plooy
25 21 89 14


In Michael Heim’s book The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality, he states that simply adding the words ‘virtual’ and ‘reality’ one comes to the conclusion that, "Virtual reality is an event or entity that is real in effect but not in fact." Virtual Reality is more than just the everyday interaction with technology such as the Internet, phone calls and faxes. When immersed in these everyday technological realties we are still in our known surroundings, where we feel safe behind a computer screen or over the phone and one can be removed from this partial virtual reality, to carry on with real life activities.

Virtual reality, coined by Jaron Lanier, is the physical act of connecting with a new reality- one constructed through programming. Now day’s humans don’t interact in a shallow virtual reality where one is constantly aware of presence of the real, but instead are immersed in this fake reality within the real world. One uses ones body within a three-hundred-and-sixty degree view, just like in reality.

Virtual reality to me is when ones physical body and ones senses are taken over by an imitation of reality. One is almost placed in a new world, but you are still standing within the real world, as we know it. This juxtaposition of the real and the ‘real’ evokes feelings of great discontent.

Virtual Reality is revolutionary because it allows the human body to interact with and explore a ‘real’ world within the real world. From my own experience of being in a small simulator a few years ago, I can recall the discontent that this juxtaposition caused. One realizes that one can move ones body like one normally does, but ones surroundings and sounds are formulated by a computer. You are aware that what you see is an imitation of the real world, but that it is not a real place, and that one is in fact still conscious in the real world, physically present and standing in it.

There are dangers which lurk within this revolutionary technology of Virtual reality because ones body and mind is in a new reality, which holds place for practicing activities such as shooting at soldiers or flying a jet. One can make big mistakes, like crash a jet or kill soldiers, without paying the consequences if it were in real life.

Virtual Reality is revolutionary because of all of these aspects, mainly because it links human movement with a virtual surrounding. This new layer of reality where human reality and technology emerge is what Virtual Reality is all about. Soon the line between reality and virtual reality will be hardly recognized…