Abstract
In the year of 2016, three major companies have presented their first generation of virtual reality (VR) devices (namely Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and PlayStation VR). It is highly anticipated that the social impact of these multibillion dollar investments in leisure technology could be enormous. The main principle of virtual reality devices is the production of a sensation of presence in the virtual world. This is achieved by sophisticated tracking systems and an almost borderless display. As a result the presented images will be held for real. But the point is that the ‘realities’ of VR may differ from common reality. And it is exactly this experience which allows certain new perspectives on the world and the individual in the world. If we literally have seen the world through the eyes of someone else, or if we have experienced some critical situations which normally would have been impossible, it becomes clear why our perspective on ourselves, the world and others may change. This chapter explores the presentation of the status quo of the technical standards of VR and its upcoming possibilities and use cases.
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Notes
- 1.
To clarify, this article does not aim at an introduction of the role of the virtual within contemporary leisure practices such as playing video games or online social networking, but rather focuses exclusively on the relatively new phenomenon of embodiment in virtual realities with the help of head-mounted displays (and appropriate accessories). See especially Spracklen (2009, 2011, 2015) for a more thorough insight to the general aspects of meaning, purpose and role of leisure (in the digital age).
- 2.
All quotations from works for which only the German reference has been given in the list of references have been translated into English by the author.
- 3.
While complaining about the allegedly high price of the first generation of mass market devices, one should not forget that before these VR was only available to a small elite in military facilities or research labs.
- 4.
A common confusion may surround the concept of immersion and the concept of presence, both indicating at some way of ‘getting into’ the virtual environments (VE): “One clear distinction between presence and immersion […] is provided by Slater and Wilbur (1997). They suggest that presence in a VE is inherently a function of the user’s psychology, representing the extent to which an individual experiences the virtual setting as the one in which they are consciously present. On the other hand, immersion can be regarded as a quality of the system’s technology, an objective measure of the extent to which the system presents a vivid virtual environment while shutting out physical reality” (Cummings and Bailenson 2016, p. 275).
- 5.
The concept of social presence seems even more important for constructing convincing virtual worlds due to its effect of forgetting the framing of virtuality. Following the research of Wirth et al. (2007), the concept of presence has to be considered as an oscillation: “Spatial Presence is a binary experience, during which perceived self-location and, in most cases, perceived action possibilities are connected to a mediated spatial environment, and mental capacities are bound by the mediated environment instead of reality.” (Wirth et al. 2007, p. 497).
- 6.
The idea of the (full) body ownership illusion is derived from the rubber hand illusion experiments by Botvinick and Cohen (1998). There, “a rubber hand is placed on a table in front of a person and seen to be tapped and stroked synchronously with corresponding stimulation on their out-of-sight real hand” (Bourdin et al. 2017, p. 2).
- 7.
For an up-to-date overview and first considerations on ethical concerns regarding the use and exploration of virtual realities see Madary and Metzinger (2016).
- 8.
See for example the findings of Peck et al. (2013), in which virtual embodiment in a different skin color significantly reduces implicit racial bias.
- 9.
Just to make sure, I would like to mention explicitly that for sociology it may on first glance seem rather trivial that a person generates multiple identities and multiple selves. Concepts such as roles, frames, and, at the very least, the theory of functional differentiation, have been drawing for a long time a telling picture of society’s multiple selves. But in comparison with these concepts of social theory, I want to emphasize that with the use of VR these modes of multiplicity become voluntary, playful, and conscious acts of spare time activity. In the end, the question arises whether the conscious changing of multiple identities also leads to a reflexive mode of the body itself. How could the experience of temporarily being someone else employ an embodiment of reflexive and multiple selves?
- 10.
With Briscoe (2014) it becomes clear that perception has to be considered as a multimodal affair: visual feedback is relatively useless unless considered against the proprioceptive orientation of the body in time and space.
- 11.
Here, the notion of ‘form’ refers to Spencer Brown’s “Laws of Form” (1969) which focuses on the unit of each distinction.
- 12.
This holds true for VR history as well. The first ‘stereoscopic’ goggles, which were very popular in the late 19th century, can be understood as an early ancestor of today’s head mounted displays. Even if its effect may seem far less impressive than current technology, the stereoscopes of the past triggered equally utopian fantasies, as Holmes states very vividly: “At least the shutting-out of surrounding objects, and the concentration of the whole attention, which is a consequence of this, produce dream-like exaltation of the faculties, a kind of clairvoyance, in which we seem to leave the body behind us and sail away into one strange scene after another, like disembodied spirits” (Holmes 1861).
- 13.
From the perspective of socio-technological hybridity (Latour 2005) we have never been modern, after all. Especially with the help of actor-network theory, the different phenomena of the fusion of real corporeality and virtual bodies can be recognized as hybrid agents, who have always been living at the boundary of reality, virtuality and fiction.
- 14.
Luhmann, at least in the fields of statistics, art, religion and play, (2002, p. 58) attempts to conceive the distinction between virtual reality and real reality with the notion of a ‘duplicated reality’. The notion of duplication has tremendous effects on society: “To the world it has the consequence that the concept of reality gets a qualifying meaning. It is only by this that reality arises, which then can be indicated, that is, distinguished from something else. Then, the world contains something which is not real in a narrow sense, but which nevertheless serves as a position for potential observers and can be observed itself. Then, it is no longer simply all that is; real by being as it is, but a special, we could say, real reality is produced by the fact that there is something which differs from it…For an observer, reality only arises when there is something in the world from which it can be distinguished; only in this way reality can become hardened in comparison with a rather fluid world of imagination” (Luhmann 2002, p. 59).
- 15.
In her essay (2011, p. 276), media sociologist Elena Esposito makes it clear that the virtual, in contrast to a simulation, which produces ‘false real objects’, produces ‘true virtual objects’ that follow the logic of the virtual. Therefore, virtuality does not appear as ‘unreal’ in comparison with the real, but should be considered more as a separate form of reflection of the world on itself.
- 16.
Spracklen defines ‘Net’ as more than just the material web of circuits and cables, or just the hyperlinks connecting data and information. Spracklen’s ‘Net’ is to be regarded as an actor-network in the sense of Latour (2005), integrating both human and non-human agents such as computers, cables, users, data storages, profiles, forums, communities, etc.
- 17.
Spracklen is clearly referencing Baumann’s (2000) concept of a fluid modernity.
- 18.
And this may be true for virtual tourism as well, as Macleod and Yoder critically point out: “Some would argue that employing virtual tourism to see, feel, taste, smell, and hear other cultures is the final step in the commodification of all culture. When items become commodified, their inherent use value is reduced while their value as things that can be exchanged on the free market increases. Culture could be produced, reproduced, and sold like a computer or a car tune-up. We wouldn’t have to worry about the comparisons between the real culture and the virtual culture because the original would have disappeared, leaving nothing to compare” (2005, p. 173).
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Harth, J. (2018). Being There, Being Someone Else: Leisure and Identity in the Age of Virtual Reality. In: Beniwal, A., Jain, R., Spracklen, K. (eds) Global Leisure and the Struggle for a Better World. Leisure Studies in a Global Era. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70975-8_7
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