Terminology Analysis of Coming of Age in Second Life, part 3

Continued from part 2.

VIRTUAL: as used in the context of "virtual world." A continued analysis of the word in the taxonomy of digital game aesthetics.

In the last post, I stated that Tom Boellstorff's book, Coming of Age in Second Life (2008) adapts the term virtual from Gilles Deleuze's metaphysical expression of virtual, based on the earlier philosophies of Henri Bergson. I agree with Deleuze that the virtual is real, yet is not actualized (like our "tangible, actually real" reality). However, Deleuze was speculating on the very nature of reality, not a digital world simulated on a computer and mediated with video screens. I don't think that Jaron Lanier was thinking of Deleuze's 1968  Difference and Repetition (which wasn't translated into English until 1994) when he popularized the term virtual reality in the 1980s, so it doesn't seem like Deleuze is helpful here.

[Update 23 Nov 2022]

Lately, the word "virtual" has fallen "somewhat out of favor with media scholars" (Brendan Keogh, A Play of Bodies (2018) pg. 55), likely partly due to its overuse as a marketing term for the past 30+ years. Like Keogh, I think that the term is still useful for discussing a player's sense of embodiment when perceiving and interacting with a digital world.

[End Update 23 Nov 2022]

[Update 4 Dec 2022]

N. Katherine Hayles wrestles with dualism as she defines virtuality as "the cultural perception that material objects are interpenetrated by information patterns" (Hayles "The Condition of Virtuality" The Digital Dialectic 1999 pg. 69 emphasis original). She wants to put forth that virtuality is a material, embodied experience, but admits that her definition plays on a dualism of information/matter, and likens it to the older traditional dualism of spirit/matter (Ibid. pg. 73), that she is trying to contest. As she writes to counter this dichotomy as a historical fallacy, she "can feel the language exerting an inertial pull on my argument, for only through the dichotomies constructed to describe it can [she] gesture toward the unity that the world is" (Ibid. pp. 75-76). The two concepts are thoroughly entangled and information can never be wholly abstracted from the material. Hayles reminds us that "for information to exist, it must always be instantiated in a medium" (Ibid. pg. 75).

[End update 4 Dec 2022]

Rob Shields, The Virtual (2003)

Sociologist Rob Shields also struggles with dualism. He "resets" some of the Bergsonian dualisms that Deleuze wrote about with an eye to make sense of our digital-created virtual experiences in his book, The Virtual (2003). Shields asserts that the virtual is an idealized reality while the concrete is an actual reality. They are in contrast with the abstract (the idealized possible) and the probable (the actual possible).

David Rothenberg, Hand's End (1993)

Thus, the virtual belongs to the realm of the ideal, the non-material. It is not in the "tangible world," as philosopher David Rothenberg describes it (in Hand's End: Technology and the Limits of Nature (1993)). So, where is it? Rothenberg: "It exists within the relation between machine and the user."

This last point may be the key to understanding what is meant by virtual in digital media. An environment may be simulated on a computer on displayed on a screen (or, "conjure it up" - Rothenberg), but this does not in itself make a virtual space. At this point, there is no space; it is merely excited phosphors inside a CRT tube, a flat array of lit LEDs, or maybe a sequence of cells of charged ionized gas. A user (gamer, resident, etc.) must interface with the computer (look at the display, place hands on control mechanism) and interpret the symbols they perceive on the screen as representing a space (the user must "invoke it" - Rothenberg).

At this point of interpretation, the user starts to embody the virtual world and realize (as in, bring into reality) that space in the user's mind. The virtual space that is perceived is incorporated into the perceptual image that the user actively constructs of reality within their mind. This is not an actual space, but the user's body and mind react (in some way) as if it is actual space (harkening back to Berthier's definition of virtual as "not real" but "displaying the qualities of reality"). It is an ideal reality, with no extents into the material world, that becomes mediated by the user's brain.

The user does not enter the virtual world. The virtual world is instantiated in the user's perceptual image.

[Update 23 Nov 2022]

Videogames do not allow players to step into virtual worlds, but they do allow players to actively perceive and interpret screen imagery, digital sounds, and haptic interfaces as if these things constitute an extended world of virtual bodies and objects (Keogh 2018 pg. 55).

[End Update 23 Nov 2022]

I don't simply write about wholly-immersive VR displays and equipment when I write about virtual worlds. I also see early 2-D arcade games and even many non-game forms of digital media as examples of virtual environments. These games, graphically primitive by the standards of modern technology, still hold the same qualities of virtuality explored here, although to differing degrees.

Any of these digital games and simulations may affect a human user's sense of proprioception, the sense of the motion and position of one's own body in space. Watch as a car racing game player, without thinking, will lean right or left as they steer, or a Doom (1993) player peer their head around to attempt to peek around a corner (a useless gesture with a 2-D display). These are preconscious movements in reaction to the computer-generated, virtual space, what I've come to term as "cyberkinaesthesia." But, that's a thought for another post.

In an attempt to finally define virtual:

• Is simulated and mediated by digital technologies (computer)
• Is only realized when interfaced with by a person

[Update 23 Nov 2022]

A virtual object is only in "potential" form until the moment it is realized in the mind of an actual person. Until then, it is merely so much computer data and maybe lights on an unseen screen. A virtual space and the actual player are co-constituted when the computer and person interface together into a perceptual circuit (system shows game state through audio and visuals; player's senses take in this information; brain processes information and makes decisions; player's body makes movements through system's input device; system creates new game state based on player input). "Neither the player nor the videogame comes first; each is created and mediated by the circuit" (Keogh 2018 pg. 41).

[End Update 23 Nov 2022]

And thus, a virtual space:

• Is simulated and mediated by digital technologies (computers)
• Has geometry (dimensionality, metrics, and extents)
• Conveys a sense of spatiality when realized by a person

This includes other forms of digital media, such as web pages, interactive fiction, and videoconferencing software. There are many virtual spaces in cyberspace, just no actual spaces.

Bringing it all back to Boellstorff, a virtual world:

• Is simulated and mediated by digital technologies (computers)
• Has a virtual environment (see below)
• Is enabled by online technologies
• Conveys a sense of spatiality when realized by multiple persons

[Update 23 Nov 2022]

Adapting the research of Narcis Parés and Roc Parés' "Towards a Model for a Virtual Reality Experience: The Virtual Subjectiveness" (2006), based on "Nature and Origins of Virtual Environments: A Bibliographical Essay" (1991) by Stephen Ellis, a virtual environment:

Has a field of action within a geometry that is defined by its dimensionality, metrics, and extents

Is populated by content, objects at specific positions within the geometry

Is moderated by dynamics that determine the rules of interaction within the environment

Note that a virtual environment is a database of parameters that defines a specific virtual place. A VE "is not, by itself, associated with the user... until it is put into action and interfaced with the user" (2006 pg. 528). We can speak of a VE whether or not it has been realized by a person.

[End Update 23 Nov 2022]

Terminology Analysis of Coming of Age in Second Life, part 2

Continued from part 1.

VIRTUAL: as used in the context of "virtual world."  

"Virtual" is a term too-often associated with virtual reality, specifically human interactions with a computer simulation through immersive interfaces like data gloves, motion trackers, and stereoscopic headsets. Like Boellstorff, I've encountered confusion from others when discussing virtual environments (even the name of this blog) that have nothing to do with VR goggles and other equipment. VR technology should be distinct from virtual worlds. Boellstorff calls for a "rehabilitation and refinement" of the term "virtual," and I agree. However, I have to differ with some of his reasoning.

No, not that type of virtual.
Photo: NASA, "The Virtual Interface Environment Workstation (VIEW)," 1990 (source)

There are several meanings for the word "virtual." Colloquially, it may be used to mean "almost" (as in, "this task is virtually impossible."). But, a virtual world is not "almost" a world - it is a world unto itself (Boellstorff makes this clear, as seen in part 1).

"Virtual" may be understood by what it is not. Where are you when you log off from Second Life? Residents call the world we physically inhabit as "Real Life," "First Life," "The Physical World," or "The Real World." These antonyms for a virtual world imply that technology makes a life less real. "Real" becomes a synonym for "offline."

But, as I hinted at in the previous post, the virtual is also "real." As Gilles Deleuze states, the opposite of the virtual is the "actual."

The virtual is opposed not to the real but to the actual. The virtual is fully real in so far as it is virtual... The virtual must be defined as strictly a part of the real object (Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, (trans. 1994), pg. 260).

Thus, the Actual World is defined as the place of human culture not realized by a computer. "Virtual" may connote approaching the "actual" without ever arriving there. As Boellstorf states, without this gap, there is no distinguishing "online" from "offline." In this contrast with the actual, the "almost" meaning of the world virtual has some significance for these purposes. I agree and prefer to use "actual" instead of "real" and also was inspired by Deleuze in this regard, but is not really helpful here.

Deleuze, inspired by Bergson, wrote of a metaphysical virtuality unlike what we deal with in digital media. Instead, virtuality is a part of reality that generates the actual (real, extended objects... what we may think of as our present reality). The virtual actually exists contemporaneously with, but is different from, the actual. Taking Bergson's vision of how memory works, recollecting some past event means to look back at a layer of this totality of the past, this virtuality. In its totality, this past (virtuality) has led to (actualized into) what is now. It cannot be said that the past and present are separated (they are contemporaneous). Both past and present are real, yet they are also separate (virtual vs. actual).

The above is my understanding of Deleuze's work, which doesn't seem very applicable to our notion of virtual worlds.

Terminology Analysis of Coming of Age in Second Life, part 1

Tom Boellstorff, Coming of Age in Second Life (2008) 

Tom Boellstorff's Coming of Age in Second Life is an anthropologist's ethnographic look at the culture of the then-new Second Life (SL) virtual world. His study was novel for the fact that he performed all of his research within SL as a participatory observer and fellow resident (term for an SL user) of a virtual world. He tried to focus on his research subjects as they are presented solely within the context of the digital space of SL, without regard for the living, breathing, fleshy users behind each of those residents.

Boellstorff began his work relatively early in the field of Game Studies, a term that only came into prominence around 2001. How does one even find the words to discuss new concepts that arise from embodying a digitally-created environment such as SL? I've struggled with finding terminology that fits my own studies, as there still isn't a consensus on how we talk about what a virtual space is or how we even come to think of ourselves as being in a computer-simulated space in the first place. I found that his established vocabulary closely matched the one that I've used in my own research.

VIRTUAL WORLD: "Any computer-generated physical space... that can be experienced by many people at once." (Edward Castronovo, Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games, (2005), pg. 22)

From Castronovo's definition, we understand that virtual worlds are:

1. Places
2. Inhabited by persons
3. enabled by online technologies

"Virtual world" forms the crux of Boellstorff's book in that something like Second Life is a world in some sense, however virtual. It is a world that may be studied by analyzing how its inhabitants ("residents") create a culture through their adaptation to this digital environment (he clarifies that it is a "culture in a virtual world" as opposed to a "virtual culture").

[Update 23 Nov 2022]

Narcis Parés and Roc Parés wrote "Towards a Model for a Virtual Reality Experience: The Virtual Subjectiveness" (2006) for the journal Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments. In the article, the researchers attempt to define a CHI (Computer-Human Interaction) model, one that expresses the relationship between user and VR experience, to use as a guide for "designers, scientists, and developers involved in VR" (pg. 524). They sought to clarify terminology used for digital worlds that are generated by computer after seeing the confusion caused by a multitude of similar terms ("VE, VR, telepresence, cyberspace, etc." (pg. 527)) used in the field.

VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENT: is the "model" of the digital space. It is the static definition of, say, a digital game level's structures, parameters, and functions. Think of this as all the information for a game level as it is saved to disk, ready to be loaded and put into action. It is Castronovo's "place," though not necessarily inhabited by persons.

A virtual environment (VE) is comprised of three types of components, as defined in the earlier article, "Nature and Origins of Virtual Environments: A Bibliographical Essay" (1991), by Stephen Ellis:

CONTENT: "The objects and actors in the environment" (1991 pg. 322). Each object may be described by state vectors (the object's properties) that identify that object's position, orientation, velocity, and acceleration (where is the object, which way is it facing, and how is it moving?) and other characteristics, like color, texture, and energy (the use of "energy" is not thoroughly described). An actor is a type of object that has certain capacities to initiate interactions with other objects. The self is a distinct actor which provides a point of view for observing the environment (or, more precisely, the point of view from which the environment may be constructed), what we think of as the player avatar (though, from a first-person point of view, there often is no visual "avatar" object to be seen). This methodology continues today, as shown in modern game engines like Unity and Unreal.

GEOMETRY: "A description of an environmental field of action. It has dimensionality, metrics, and extent" (1991 pg. 322). This is the "environmental space" in which all the game objects are positioned. In the game industry, we used to use the word "geometry" for all of the static 3-D objects that define the player's navigable environment (ground plane, walls, buildings, ceilings, etc.). We sometimes erroneously called this the "background," a term that shows its roots in 2-D game production. Here, Ellis defines geometry as the entire area, measured by Cartesian coordinates, within which a virtual environment may exist, the tabula rasa upon which a game world is defined.

DYNAMICS: "The rules of interaction" among an environment's contents, "describing their behavior as they exchange energy or information" (1991 pg. 322). A physics system  that simulates Newtonian dynamics, applying a constant pull of gravity on content in the environment, would be an example of dynamics.

VIRTUAL REALITY: is "the structures of virtual environment put into action" (2006 pg. 528, emphasis in original). This is the user-centric, real-time experience of a VE. For example, a video game level, loaded into the game engine, and being simulated and evolving over time as the player perceives and interacts with it is considered to be virtual reality (VR).

I find that VR is too loaded of a term to use in this general manner. The researchers specifically don't want to "restrict VR to 3D experiences and... [include] important 2D VR work" (2006 pg. 528), but VR is so much in the public consciousness as something inherently tied to immersive technologies, especially head-mounted stereoscopic display interfaces, as I wrote about elsewhere.

[End Update 23 Nov 2022]

No-one is born a "digital native;" we are all immigrants when we join virtual worlds. As he states, the very notions of selfhood, community, and human nature are not just simulated our recreated from our "actual" world - they are remade and reconfigured new in a virtual world (though his own research shows that residents bring many of their prejudices and worldviews along with them). The virtual world sociality develops on its own terms. Thus, he set out to study that world on its own terms, as a standalone world without a necessary connection to life beyond the screen (note that this goal was somewhat undermined by his subjects often bringing up "real life" (RL) concerns from outside SL during the study).

Boellstorff treats the terms "virtual," "cyber," and "online" as roughly equivalent. He also sees "cybersociality" and "online culture" as terms that are interchangeable with "virtual world."

There is myriad of terms that Boellstorff specifically avoids using:

• "Synthetic World" (Castronovo 2005)
• "Persistent World" (David Kushner, Masters of Doom, (2003))
• "Artificial World" (Tolga K. Çapin, et al, Avatars in Networked Virtual Environments, (1999))
• "Digital World" (Stefan Helmreich, Silicon Second Nature, (1998))
• "Mirror World" (David Gelernter, Mirror Worlds, or the Day Software Puts the Universe in a Shoebox, (1991))
• "Possible World" (Marie-Laure Ryan, Possible Worlds: AI and Narrative Theory, (1991))
• "Virtual Community" (Howard Rheingold, The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier, (2000))
• "Virtual Environment" (Jim Blascovich, The Social Life of Avatars (2002))
• "Metaverse" (Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash (1993))

[Update 23 Nov 2022]

Adding some additional terms not mentioned by Boellstorff:

• "Microworld" (David Sudnow, Pilgrim in the Microworld (1983)) 

[End Update 23 Nov 2022]

[Update 29 Nov 2022]

• "Simulated World (SW)" (Andreas Gregersen and Torben Grodal "Embodiment and Interface" The Video Game Theory Reader 2 (2009)) 

[End Update 29 Nov 2022]

"Synthetic," "artificial," and "mirror" descriptors point to an inauthenticity or unreality of virtual worlds. However, the "virtual" is not the opposite of the "real." You still have a "real" meeting when you meet with co-workers through video conferencing software like Zoom or Skype. You are still "really" playing with others in an online video game. A virtual world is, in some sense, "real" and it is authentic to itself.

"Digital" refers to a world of electronic technology, which sounds a lot like modern everyday existence anyway. 

"Persistent" seems to imply a digital environment that continues functioning even when you are not there (as opposed to single-player video games that only instantiate around the main player character while they play).

"Possible" refers to Liebnizian concept as it is used to construct a model of semantics, more to do with narratology than ludology.

At this point in time, the less said about "Metaverse," the better.

I will further analyze just what Boellstorff means by "virtual" and "world" in another post. Although I agree strongly with his end definitions, I don't always agree with his means of reaching those definitions.

Traversing Virtual Dimensions

Welcome to the first post in my research blog.

I am studying the aesthetic qualities of digital games (a.k.a. video games), some of which are distinct to digital media, in order to better analyze the development and history of this relatively new art form.

Digital game history tends to be treated as a timeline of technological achievements or market dominance. Games are stratified into eras based on the types of microprocessors they use: 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit, and 64-bit generations. Game evolution is noted by ever-increasing computing power and display technology. Digital games are now a deeply ingrained part of modern culture, but they are still treated as technical artifacts.

How do we instead talk about digital games as aesthetic objects? Much of game discourse focuses on cultural and social aspects of games. Discussions of a game's aesthetics tends to focus on its graphics (all too often with comparisons to cinema or animation). Technologies, stylistic choices, and ludic conventions spurred the development of new aesthetic principles and conventions to define the microworlds of video games, yet we don't have a robust set of terminology to talk about them. Can our traditional methods of art history serve this new media, or do we need a new lexicon to study and discuss their unique aesthetic qualities and cultural contexts?

An early effort in my analysis of the earliest avatar control methods and ensuing "cyberkinaesthesia" that results from them can be found in my interactive project, Traversing Virtual Dimensions (after which this blog is named). Click below to launch in browser:

Click to launch this project on itch.io