Category: Virtual Realities

During the course “Real Virtualities”, I have been exploring the influence of new media, focussing specifically on the emerging culture of real virtuality. What does this mean? With the growing presence of media in our culture, traditional ways of experiencing and making sense of the boundaries between reality and media presentations appear to be shifting. Older views, for instance, of visual material as re-presenting an original reality existing elsewhere and independently of media, are often no longer accurate. Much of our experience actually takes place within media spaces, such as online environments. In academic scholarship, as well as in public debate, the virtuality of a life that is increasingly (also) lived online is often lamented. Isn’t it more abstract, more distanced, and, for instance, making our relationships with people and events more superficial? Others, however, point to the exciting possibilities of lives lived in hybrid spaces, and argue experiencing augmented reality can actually be more rewarding and intense. In this course, we place ourselves in the midst of these debates about the experience in a culture of real virtuality.