Texto apresentado em janeiro de 1995 no evento Image Box '94
(Skopje/Macedônia), realizado no Museum of Contemporary Art, à convite do SOROS-Center for Contemporary Arts Skopje. Overcoming Thingness
The term work of art can be defined
in a very broad and in a very strict sense. In the very broad
sense, a work of art is anything that was taken out of
the context of nature and changed according to a model. In this
sense it is possible to call the sum total of works of art our
cultural surroundings. In the very strict sense, a work
of art is any thing that was taken out of the natural context
and changed in such a way that it may convey an aesthetic experience
to its beholder. In this sense an analysis of our cultural surroundings
will reveal two classes of works, those of art and
others. In the first sense, the word art means any method
by which a thing of nature can be changed. In the second sense,
the word art means a specific method (the one that aims
at communicating a specific sort of experience, which is called
aesthetic for the lack of a better word to describe it).
Either way the word work of art means the result of any
methodical change in a natural thing. It means an object of culture.
A phenomenologist would say that our cultural
surroundings are composed of objects whose surface hide things
of nature and a model. For instance a phenomenological analysis
of a typewriter would reveal aluminum, iron and other natural
things, and it would also reveal the model according to which
these natural things were manipulated to result in the typewriter
as a cultural object. A further analysis would have to specialize
either in the research of the natural things hidden by the typewriter
(into the science of nature), or into the research of the model
hidden by the typewriter (into the science of culture, or, if
you prefer, the science of the spirit).
Now, what such an analysis reveals is the
fact that our cultural surroundings are composed of objects. Namely
of things which (although they were changed according to models)
still stand around us like the things of nature. The manipulation
of things which changed them into cultural objects did not change
their thingness, their standing around us. There is a specific
structure to our relationship with things that stand around us
(be they things of nature or cultural objects): We act upon them
and they react to our action. This structure can be described
as follows:
Therefore such an analysis of our cultural
surroundings will reveal that we are just as much determined
by cultural objects as we are by the things of nature. In
fact, since most of the things that surround us are of the type
cultural object, we are at present much more determined
by cultural objects than we are by the things of nature. Now,
this poses a serious problem: Culture is the result of manipulation
of natural things, which means that it is the result of attempts
to remove those things, to clear our way, to free ourselves from
their determination. But analysis shows that those attempts must
fail, because the natural things thus manipulated continue to
be objects, that is, factors of determination. This has
two serious and important consequences:
The first one concerns the project of culture.
The whole attempt to change nature into culture, the entire commitment
to cultural activity as a liberation from natural determination
is thus put into question.
The second consequence is the refusal to accept
this dilemma, or to accommodate to the circumstances (to what is
standing around us). The revolt against the things whose hard
contours prove our limitations leads to attempts to create a world
where everything is at our disposal. A world, where things
only have the characteristics of things insofar as they do
not stand in our way. Where they are freed of their thingness
and of their inertia, except if we want them to be inert,
hard, and heavy. What we perceive as a thing in such a
virtual world is really not an object anymore, but rather a project:
programmed by ourselves and then projected upon the retina.
VR is the dream of a world without objects, without factors
of determination. A world completely at our will.
In the following section entitled VR, or:
Into the W'orld Model, I will try to illuminate a few aspects
of VR that seem especially interesting to me.
VR, or: Into the World Model
VR is a fashionable term. At present, VR is the technology that seems
to fascinate the leading innovators in the music and art scene
most. That shows how challenging the creative use of the means
of media has become. This use is driven by an aesthetic fascination.
VR changes the rules of the process of communication with the
computer, because the role of the user is shifting from that of
a distanced observer towards that of an experiencing participant.
The concept of VR is radically simple. If
you stimulate the audiovisual senses exclusively by means of synthetic
information of a world model calculated by the computer, the victim
of this manipulation is treated to the illusion of being an inhabitant
of the calculated artificial world. Myron Krueger, one of the
fathers of VR, believes that the artificial reality could develop
into a daily residence and work space that will only be left for
a trip into reality: "Physical reality will be like the
backwoods - a nice place to visit, but you cannot get anything
done there".
Of course, this provokes protest. Flusser,
known to be anything but hostile to technology, interpreted a
prophecy from the Old Testament in a series of essays, "Kleine
Anthropologie der Dinge" ("Short Anthropology of Things"),
and related it to the presumption of VR: "How about those
who design so-called virtual spaces in order to turn them into
alternative worlds? >The Lord will shatter the peoples of computer
folks. He will shatter those creators of pots together with their
hollow wares.< - This may not sound very biblical, but it does
sound creepy, and it should accompany all the symposiums on things
like >digital semblance<, >cyberspace<, or >synthetic
simulation and holography<". A god of retribution
may or may not shatter California. However, Flusser is certainly
right about one thing - it is dangerous to create a technology
that can make our reality partly superfluous, even if it cannot
destroy it.
In VR, you can take the shape of any body.
You can also feel it. By stimulating nerves at two different points
you can deceive the brain to believe in the stimulation of a third
nerve-end that can lie outside the real body.
At present, a new instrument for the visualization
of data is being developed. A miniature laser built into a spectacle-frame
writes its data directly onto the optic nerve of the eye background.
This principle is comparable to that of television, where an electron
beam paints its signs onto the phosphoric layer of the television
screen. Only here the after-image effect of the optic nerves is
taken advantage of. The idea is to create an overlay of real images
and additional artificial information. This will change perception
fundamentally.
Another example: Participants equipped with
VR terminals can share an imaginary conference room at an intercontinental
tele-conference. This has already been tried out over standard
telephone lines. In each connected computer there is a constant
exchange of data on current changes. Thus they all have identical
models of the VR shared. This model is experienced by each user
from their individual perspective. As the geometrical representation
of all participants is also a part of this model world, each observer
knows what his or her partners are just doing in the shared reality.
This is a very crucial quality of VR. We have
been tought by philosophers and scientists that even in RR, we
can never know what is true and what is not. For practical reasons,
we tend to accept a perception as true, if it is shared
by other people and confirmed by them. Intersubjectivity is the
decisive criterion for us whenever we are in doubt whether something
is true or not. Now, the experiences in VR can be shared
with other people with whom we interact in the VR just like in
RR. VR provides us with true, authentic (although unreal)
intersubjective experiences. They are authentic, because
they really are intersubjective, and the fact that they
happen in VR does not make them less real.
The interaction in VR is as true as
the interaction in RR. Intersubjectivity of experience is no longer
a reliable criterion for what is real and what is not.
Two significant attempts have been made to
develop a VR technology that can do without the wearable technology,
that is data suits, data gloves, goggles. One is Krueger's
"Videoplace". Here, the computer analyzes the silhouette
of a person and reacts to it. It is able to calculate the simulation
of a three-dimensional space from the movements of the silhouette.
Of course, this is only possible, if the computer can differentiate
between different parts of the body, even if they only appear
as elements of a silhouette. We identify with our representation
if it acts synchronously with us (like our image in the mirror).
The other approach is called the "Mandala
system". It uses three visual layers composed onto each other.
In the foreground, the electronically cut-out video recording
of the user moves. The background shows projections of images.
In between there is a layer with symbo]s. Just like you use your
mouse to click on an icon on your computer screen, the user touches
these symbols. That means, his or her silhouette overlaps
with them and thus directs the computer. There are several possiblities
of how to play with this technology. You can make all three layers
visible to the actor and the audience. Or, you can
show the visual background only to the audience, or, display
the icons only to the actor, who watches his performance
on a monitor screen.
In the next section, I would like to focus
on the physiological conditions of VR. Our brain constructs reality
from almost no outside information. Of course, this situation
lends itself to devices of illusion like VR.
VR: Suppositions and Applications
Aristotle defined our senses as "windows
to the world". However, today we know that we are only
able to perceive less than 1% of the electromagnetic frequences
out there. This means that we ignore 99%, and call the
remaining 1% "reality".
Perception is a construction. The only thing
we can say about what we perceive is that the world is not against
it. Constructivists call this unpretentiousness the criterion
of viability. We call our model of reality true, if it
works, if it fits. The natural scientists of the 20th century
have shocked us with their insight that physical reality is nothing
but what a hand on a scale is showing. Now, the new media call
our attention to the mediality of the senses themselves. The simultaneous
boom of radical constructivism and VR is no coincidence.
The limitations of our senses go even further.
We hardly notice slow movement or events with a short life span.
We cannot perceive things very small or very big. We are basically
ignorant. Our reality is nothing but a model. And if we
are not aware of these limitations, we are truly held captive
by our senses. The order of magnitude our senses are made for
determins what we perceive as reality. This can be illustrated
by the fact that we have no sense to tell us that the earth we
live on is spinning around. If we were born inside a constantly
fast-moving train with darkened windows, we would take this state
of darkness and vibrations as reaIity. And of course, we
would be right. - How would we feel, if the train suddenly slowed
down? If it stopped'? If the windows were opened and the sun shone
in? Would we not doubt the reality of this experience?
Would we not think of the landscape outside
the window as of a VR'?
But of course, we need something to cling
to. We need to believe in the reality we construe. If VR
succeeds in producing images and sounds of very high fidelity,
we will be able to take them for real. We will be able - if we
want it. I do not believe that VR will work against our will.
Like hypnosis, or like every technique of illusion, like theater,
literature, or film, VR only works if we venture on the conditions
offered by the media, and if we are willing to play the game and
use our imagination. Can you be hypnotized against your will?
It seems to me that the real question lies in the intermediate
area where you feel like your will is still your own but you may
be influenced or seduced by very powerful representations already.
So, the question is really: Will you notice the point where your
will is not really your own free will anymore'?
Theater does not create an illusion, if you
do not want it to. Did you ever got really sucked into the plot
in a way that would make you forget you were really sitting in
a theater'? It does not seem likely that VR will make us forget
that we are in a virtual space and not in the RR, if we do not
want to make that transition. Otherwise we may forget about the
technology we are using, but we will rememher where we are, and
how we got there, - provided we will be interested in this kind
of self-reflexive thought while we are acting in a VR.
Based on Klaus Lazarowicz's theory about the
theater as a triadic collusion, I would suggest a term
like contrat virtuel to describe the agreement necessary
between the user, the software, and the hardware in order to create
the illusion of a VR. Contrat virtuel means an (of course
silent and unwritten) agreement between all parties involved,
that the creation of a VR is the aim of their cooperation. The
virtual world can only be construed in the mind of the user, no
matter how perfect the technology of VR will become at imitating
RR. Contrat virtuel is a term I propose in order
to give a name to the (conscious or unconscious) intention of
a person to enter a virtual world, and the corresponding intention
of the technology and codes (or, rather, of the creators and programmers
of the hard- and software) used to support this intention.
VR, however, can be equally - or even more
- convincing than RR. The point where our senses, our eyes and
ears become the weakest link in the chain of perception, is the
point, where VR subjectively hecomes equal to RR. In fact, VR
can contain more information than RR, because it can blend in
additional data either artificially created or transferred from
areas of the spectrum that we normally cannot perceive, and add
them to our perception.
Jan Fikacek in Prague is currently working
on a VR program to visualize the validity and effects, and also
the aesthetics, of Albert Einstein's relativity theory. He does
this by lowering the speed of light in that particular VR down
to 40 km/h. Now, if light moves at the speed of 40 km/h, we can
actually see it move. Changing this single parameter will
lead to a completely different perception, to the perception of
a world that is real as well as virtual at the same time. We will
thus be able to experience a world whose order of magnitude is
usually far above what we can perceive with our senses. We will
experience the validity of Einstein's laws. Of course, the space
time continuum we will virtually live in will seem to us strange
and foreign, distorted and perhaps even absurd. By adapting physical
laws to human orders of magnitude, we may even be able to understand
four-dimensional space - by acting in its crooked and bent universe
and interacting with it in a natural way.
The possible applications of VR are manifold:
The Israeli army developed a robot that performs surgery on the
battlefield. The real surgeon sits in a hospital somewhere
far away. His data helmet supplies him or her with a three-dimensional,
live image of the patient's body, while the slightest movement
of the surgeon's fingers in the data glove are transferred into
movements of the artificial hand of the robot. Thus, the surgeon
is safe. He or she does not have to travel to the battlefield
but instead can perform many more operations in that time. The
robot is always operated by the best specialist there is for each
respective kind of surgery. Also, the robot's hand does not tremble.
His software corrects and levels out trembling. And perhaps the
biggest advantage: The scales of the transmission can be changed,
so that a very delicate surgery in a microscopic order of magnitude
can be carried out very conveniently. In order to make a cut of
1/10 mm, the surgeon then can move his hand, say 10 cm. And he
does not have to worry anymore about a few millimeters more or
less. These advantages are so obvious that sooner or later difficult
operations may be performed with the help of VR, even if the surgeon
is present.
It is a very uplifting feeling to see tons
of weight being lifted several meters in precise correspondence
to a little, effortless movement of your hand. Wherever there
is work to do under inhuman conditions, VR can be a useful tool.
Whenever the environment is too hot, too cold, too radio-active.
Whenever the pressure is too high or there is not enough oxygen.
Whenever there is a dangerous job to do. Whenever we want to simulate
the effects of something we consider doing. Whenever we design
something. Whenever we have to act in inhuman orders of magnitude,
be it microscopic or astronomic. VR has been used in the natural
sciences and in medicine for some years already.
The technology of VR allows architects to
walk through their buildings when they are still in the phase
of planning. It lends a virtual body to the physically disabled
- at least for some time.
And, of course, VR is used by the military.
There is a famous scene from the Gulf War. A bomber pilot was
giving an interview right after he had landed. As he was still
wearing his helmet, the cannons of his plane were still following
every movement of his eyes. The technology used was not strictly
VR. However, the technology that helped develop VR also made it
possible for this pilot to destroy something basically by looking
at it.
The last section of my paper points back at
its first one. I will try to underscore the dual characteristics
of VR. It has an inherent potential both progressive and regressive
at the same time.
The Gates of Eden
Philosophy begins when a human being hits
something hard, stumbles over a stone for instance, and notices
that there is a world out there. We realize there is an object,
something objecting to us. We are subjected to this stone in our
pathway and we would like to get it out of our way.
In paradise, there was no such thing. Were
there things at all? We did not stumble in paradise. So much is
for sure. There is no subject-object-split in paradise. Paradise
is a soft world. Down here, however, we are always between a rock
and a hard place. That hurts. No wonder we find a regressive or
transcendent longing in almost every culture - a longing to go
back to paradise, or to move on further towards a transcendent
heaven.
"The kingdom of experience" is
a tough, inhospitable, and inhumane place: Auschwitz, the Gulag,
Hiroshima, wars and famines everywhere. This is the collective
experience of mankind in the hard world that we call real.
The objects give us a bloody nose, and in the end we die.
We would rather retreat into a soft world without those objects
that always hurt and hinder us. Back into paradise, back to Eden:
"I had to find the passage back to the place I was before"
(The Eagles). Of course, we only know all too well that the
passage back will be denied to us forever (and of course, a psychoanalyst
would refer the passage back to the birth canal). Heinrich
von Kleist made that sufficiently clear in his essay "Ueber
das Marionettentheater" ("On the puppet-show")
in 1810 that it is an absurd endeavour for us to try to be naive
again. There is no passage back. We can only return to
paradise after "cognition will have gone through the infinite",
not by pretending to be naive again, but by becoming more sophisticated.
Saying no to regression is crucial for our cultural and political
development. Sapere aude.
Regression is dangerous, and even if it may
seem like the easy way out, we know there is no such simple solution.
Progress, on the other hand, has become more and more dubious
and threatening. And the third option, trying to ignore the technological
changes and the paradigm shift they are embedded in, offers obviously
no solution at all.
So, now we find ourselves in a difficult situation
- between a rock and a hard place in every respect. We are indeed
"knocking on heaven's door". And of course, I
took the title of this paper, "VR - The Gates of Eden Revisited",
from another Boh Dylan song, "Gates of Eden". It contains
the following verse:
In the precious winds they rot (...) And the princess and the prince Discuss what's real and what is not It doesn't matter inside the Gates of Eden"
It is true: When we dive into a VR, it does
not matter anymore what is real and what is not. Is this not escapism?
Let us assume it is. But - so what? If we accuse somebody of escaping
reality, this raises the question of what reality is and what
there is outside or beyond reality that we can escape to. Whatever
that is - is it not real? Does anything exist that is not real?
And of course, this leads us baclc to the good old philosophical
insight that it is impossihle to know "what's real and
what is not". However, that "doesn't matter inside
the Gates of Eden".
Funny though, that the last line of the song
goes: "And there are no truths outside the Gates
of Eden". When I first heard this, I thought I had misunderstood.
Should it not rather say: "'1'here are no truths inside
the Gates of Eden"? There is no subject-object-split
in there, so there is no critical thinking, no way to approve
or disapprove of something. But the line does make sense the way
it is: "What's real and what is not [...] doesn't matter
inside the Gates of Eden", and outside the Gates of Eden
there is no truth. The truth is, the differentiation between real
and unrea/, or real and virtual, makes
no sense.
Of course, the differentiation between "what's
real and what is not" does offer a useful tool for everyday
life. Like newtonian physics. We know Einstein proved Isaac Newton's
laws wrong, or at Ieast incomplete. But it still makes more sense
to use newtonian physics in our daily lives than the highly unpractical
theory of relativity. In spite of the fact that the use of the
term virtual implies a concept of reality that can
no longer be sustained, we will continue to use it.
Also, our ethics are still based on a distinction
between what is true and what is not. We shudder to think
of the inconceiveable consequences it would perhaps bring about
to divest ourselves of these basics of our moral. We might, however,
find ourselves staring at these basic assumptions of our ehtics
running through our fingers anyway. The new media have already
turned our perception upside down. It will turn out increasingly
hard in the future to believe in truth. But how can we
be critical or moral, if there is no concept of truth left
for us'? Of course, this is a serious question, and many, many
intelligent people have been debating it for many years already
- without any convincing results so far. This is an interesting
and urgent challenge not only to moral philosophers, who have
already been posing the question to themselves, but also to media
theorists.
The term VR implies that what is virtual
is not real. This is o.k.. The problem, however, is that it also
implies an opposition between virtuality and reality.
This opposition is based on the assumption that what is virtual
could be real (but is not), and what is real is really real. And
this assumption cannot be accepted.
According to Flusser, no meaningful distinction
can be drawn between reality and representation, for they differ
only in degree of probability, not in essence. In this respect,
Flusser goes beyond Jean Baudrillard, who maintains that "today
f...] the real and the imaginary are confused", "Reality
itself [...] has been confused with its own image". It
is amazing, how naive a concept of "reality" Baudrillard's
highly complex and sophisticated theory of simulations is built
on.
A simple example can show how virtual
our reality can be. The Astronomical Clock of the Old
Town Hall in Prague was crafted in 1490. Ever since, it has been
a symbol and a proof of the correct, the real time. It
used to be more real than anything else. Everybody set
their watches according to it. Now, sometimes recently, when high-ranking
visitors came to Prague, the officials there turned the clock
back or forward, just so that the guests could watch a mechanical
performance by the figures of Christ and the Apostles that usually
takes place every full hour. (Is this cheating? Do you feel this
is immoral? If you ask yourself, you may see how big the
gap is between what you rationally accept as a critique of our
traditional concept of truth and reality on one
hand and your spontaneous, moral gut feeling on the other hand.)
Anyway, the changing of this clock is a highly
significant gesture. Perhaps it would have been unthinkable, had
the media not changed our perception and started an accelerating
process of decomposition of our concepts of truth and reality.
The changing of the clock aims at the opposite of what VR
is trying to do - it turns reality into fiction. It creates
a different kind of VR. Baudrillard's conclusion is obviously
right (even if his basic assumption is dubious): "Reality
f...] has been confused with its own image".
However, we cannot take a vacation from reality.
Everywhere we go, we always take reality with us. VR is
no exception to that. It is just a different kind of reality,
one that we are able to control to a higher degree. Although VR
offers us an artificial, man-made world, that world is no less
real than the hard world we live in. But we can design this world
to be a soft world with no rocks in it to stumble over. It can
mean Eden to us.
VR is the technology, the interface between
us and that soft world. It is just a very unfamiliar reality,
a newly discovered part of the world. VR may be a new found land,
but it is in no way paradise. However, it can give us an idea
of what they looked like - the Gates of Eden. |
Andreas Max Stroehl, born in 1962 in Munich, Germany. 1981-87 studies at the University of Munich: Recent German Literature, Theatre, American Studies, Philosophy. M.A. in 1987. Operator at a computer centre for half a year. Then staff writer of a business and economics magazine in Munich. Joined the Goethe-Institut in 1988. Training programme until 1990. Until 1991 teacher of German as a foreign language at the Goethe-Institut Bonn. Then transferred to Prague, in charge of cultural programmes at the Goethe-Institut here. Got to know Vilém Flusser late in November 1991 in Prague. After Flusser's death, numerous articles, translations and lectures on his work. Organized the first international Flusser conference ever (1992 in Prague) and subsequently one mediatheoretical symposium every year at the Goethe-Institut Prag. In addition, since 1996, teaching position as a guest lecturer on media theory at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. |
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